The complaint against author Herman Brusselmans came after a column he wrote for the Humo magazine about the situation in Gaza. ‘’I get so furious that I want to ram a pointed knife loose down the throat of every Jew I meet,’’ he wrote among other things.
According to the court, Brusselmans “did not exceed the limits of the punishable.” The ruling also referred to the ”right to free speech.”
The President of the European Jewish Association, Rabbi Menachem Margolin, strongly condemned the court decision, calling it ‘’a deeply alarming message about the state of the fight against antisemitism in Belgium and Europe.’’
Jewish organizations reacted with great dismay to the ruling by the Ghent court in Belgium to acquit author Herman Brusselmans on charges of Holocaust denial or trivialization, racism, and incitement to hatred.
The complaint against Brusselmans came after a column Brusselmans wrote in August for the Humo magazine about the situation in Gaza. ‘’I get so furious that I want to ram a pointed knife loose down the throat of every Jew I meet,’’ he wrote among other things.
According to the court, Brusselmans “did not exceed the limits of the punishable” and ‘’there are no criminal offenses.’’
The judge also referred to the right to free speech. “The court recognizes that certain members of the Jewish community could possibly take offence at some sentences in some columns, but emphasizes that the author’s expressions of opinion are protected by the right to free speech.” The court called that right “one of the essential pillars in our democratic society.”
The President of the European Jewish Association (EJA), Rabbi Menachem Margolin, strongly condemned the court decision, calling it ‘’a deeply alarming message about the state of the fight against antisemitism in Belgium and Europe.’’
“Today, the Belgian justice system has established a grave precedent: hate crime laws are flexible – and when it comes to Jews, they suddenly become malleable,’’ he stated.
For Margolin, the ruling ‘’sets an unacceptable precedent: it effectively legitimizes a person, read by hundreds of thousands, to openly call for the murder of Jews without facing any legal consequences. It deems it permissible to publish in a national media outlet the desire to “stab a knife into the throat of every Jew encountered,” all under the pretext of anger over the situation in Gaza.’’
‘’By issuing such a verdict, the Belgian judiciary sends a dangerous message: incitement to murder and hatred can be reinterpreted, excused, and ultimately legitimized – at least when the targets are Jews,’’ he added. .
‘’Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of any democracy, but even freedom of speech has limits. That limit is crossed the moment it is used to harm, incite, and endanger another group in society—regardless of their background. Freedom of speech is not the freedom to spread hate and antisemitism. When the justice system legitimizes incitement, it erodes the very foundations of democracy itself,’’ he said.
The EJA called on the Belgian government ‘’to take responsibility.’’ ‘’Urgent legislative reforms are needed to close any legal loopholes that enable such morally and legally indefensible rulings.’’
Michel Kotek, Chairman Jewish Information and Documentation Center, which lodged a complaint said : “This is a disgrace to Belgian jurisprudence. Someone who has been making such statements since 1993, then we are no longer talking about an incident. This is a constant repetition of moves in which anti-Semitic statements predominate.”
“We too are for freedom of speech,” he added. “But where it spills over into hatred and the deprivation of safety, that’s where a government must intervene. And that’s where it fails.”