From the Office of the Mayor of Brussels

Below is the press release issued earlier today by the office of the mayor of Brussels, announcing the refusal of a permit for the SIOE demonstration on September 11th.

Many thanks to Mr. Resident for translating it from the Flemish:

The Mayor of Brussels forbids anti-Islamic protest march

BRUSSELS 09/08 (BELGA) — The mayor of Brussels Freddy Thielemans forbids a protest demonstration against “the rise of Islamic customs”. He decided this on Thursday after a meeting with the police and other services. Thielemans fears this protest will lead to incidents between demonstrators and Muslim parts of the population of his city. Thus has been learned from Thielemans’ spokesman.

On the 11th of September, the organization “Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) wants to stage a protest in front of the European Parliament in Brussels, exactly six years after the attacks on the WTC towers in New York. The organizers deny any link with extreme right wing movements, but want to stop the “invasion of Islamic customs” in Europe. The organization is against Islamic law, which, according to them, clashes with democracy and equality, which are highly-rated European values.

The mayor of Brussels Freddy Thielemans has, after a thorough meeting with the police decided that this protest cannot take place. “The risk for public order is too high”, said his spokesperson Nicolas Dassonville. “There is a large foreign community in the vicinity, which might react violently. Moreover, the organization stated on their website they will use clearly Islamophobic language.” It can be found on the site that “the Muslims in Europe are trying to found parallel societies”.

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Behind the Stop the Islamisation of Europe are the Danish anti-Islam party SIAD, the British No Sharia Here and the German Pax Europe. The organizers hope to see tens of thousands of protesters.

Thielemans’ spokesman stressed the point that the city of Brussels annually receives between five and six hundred applications for events, but during the last five years only forbade six of them. “For example, one was a protest staged by the DHKCP, because the court judged it a terrorist organization. Furthermore we always try to reach a consensus with the organizers.”

The protest meeting’s organizers have to make it known that the meeting has been banned and cannot take place. They have to use the same channels as they used for the announcement of the meeting. [emphasis added]

Since this blog was one of the channels which originally announced the SIOE protest, this post constitutes compliance with the last paragraph of the mayor’s statement.