Complaints grow against author Brusselmans over column in Humo magazine
The East Flanders public prosecutor’s office has launched an investigation into author Herman Brusselmans’ column in weekly magazine Humo, following a complaint by Belgian equality institute Unia.
According to Unia, Brusselmans violated article 20 of the anti-racism law with his column, published last week, and incited hatred or violence against people of Jewish origin.
“It is now up to the public prosecutor’s office to investigate this further,” a spokesperson said. Unia is only filing a complaint against the author, not against Humo or the magazine’s publisher, DPG Media.
Last week, the European Jewish Association (EJA) announced it was taking legal action against Brusselmans for his column, in which he writes that seeing the image of a Palestinian boy screaming for his mother lying beneath rubble makes him imagine his own son and partner and “makes him so enraged that he wants to shove a knife down the throat of every Jew he meets”.
"This is by no means satire or black humour, but a call for violence and murder against Jews"
The Forum of Jewish Organisations, the Comité de Coordination des Organisations Juives de Belgique and the Jonathas Institute, a centre for study and action to combat antisemitism, have also announced they are taking legal action, alleging incitement of hatred and violence and threatening attacks against persons.
The organisations say they are “particularly outraged by these worrying antisemitic statements”. “In a democratic society that respects universal values, it is unacceptable for freedom of speech to be used to incite hatred,” they said. “This is by no means satire or black humour, but a call for violence and murder against Jews.”
'Off the mark'
The EJA demanded an apology and the immediate suspension of Brusselmans. Humo’s editor said the column was a piece of satire, not journalism, and should be judged on literary terms, while Brusselmans said the EJA’s accusations were “completely off the mark”. The text was removed from the online edition of the magazine.
On Tuesday, Dutch writer Arnon Grunberg announced he was ending his collaboration with Humo after 25 years as a result of the column. Grunberg comes from a Jewish family. His mother survived Auschwitz and his father was forced to go into hiding during World War II.
#FlandersNewsService | © Author Herman Brusselmans © PHOTO DUTCHPRESSPHOTO
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