Get The Trolls Out Belgian partner organisation European Union of Jewish Students (EUJS) submitted complaints to two bodies after antisemitic chants were used during a demonstration in Brussels.
On the 28th of June, 2020, a demonstration took place at the Place du Trône in Brussels. During the event, antisemitic slogans were chanted. A group of protesters could be heard chanting “'Khaybar, khaybar, Ya ya'ud, jaysh Muhammad sawfa ya'ud (“ Khaybar, Khaybar O Jews, Muhammad's army will return. ”). The chant was caught on video. The slogan refers to a symbol of Muslim domination over Jews. Back in 2014, a similar event resulted in a criminal conviction, confirmed on appeal.
EUJS submitted a complaint to Comité P, which handles police complaints, and UNIA, which handles reports of discrimination in Belgium. EUJS explained their reasoning behind the complaint:
“EUJS is speaking to you because we believe that in the future we should be preventing rather than curing. In other words, the Brussels Police cannot tolerate anti-Semitic chants, and should have acted at the time to prevent this from happening. Cries of this sort are a danger to the Belgian Jewish community. Tolerating this kind of shouting suggests that the Belgian state is indifferent if some citizens call for the death of a Belgian minority. We also recall that the 1981 “Anti Racism and Xenophobia” law, updated in 2007, suggests that a police intervention in this case complies with the Belgian legal system.”
UNIA responded to the complaint examplaining that they had opened a file concerned the incident and lodged a complaint with the Brussels public prosecutor’s office. UNIA also clarified that they spend significant resources training police officers in the investigation and pro security of discrimination and hate crimes.