Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) has signalled his support for a parliamentary review of Belgium’s 1981 Anti-Racism Law, arguing that freedom of expression should be restricted as little as possible.
Speaking in the Chamber of Representatives, the lower house of Belgium’s federal parliament, on May 28, De Wever responded to a question from Vlaams Belang MP Alexander Van Hoecke about the controversial conviction of activist Dries Van Langenhove.
Van Langenhove was found guilty of incitement to hatred despite the court acknowledging that many of his statements were factually accurate, with judges ruling that the context and alleged racist intent made them criminal.
“Freedom of expression must be restricted as little as possible,” De Wever said. “The best weapon against a bad idea is a better idea.”
“As long as you don’t call for violence, I think words should be combated with words and not with a court.”
The Belgian PM stressed he spoke in his own name and not as the leader of the government, where the matter has not been officially discussed.
De Wever went on to say he agreed with Chamber President Peter De Roover (N-VA) that the legislation should be examined closely to see whether it restricts freedom of speech in unwanted ways. De Roover had earlier told the Flemish weekly Knack he favoured an evaluation of the law.
He stressed that it was up to parliament to organise such an examination, since it was the legislative power, and to reflect on it calmly. “I definitely won’t stop you.”
In his reply to the PM, Van Hoecke said his party already had a legislative proposal ready and hoped it would get the support of others.
De Wever’s Defence Minister Theo Francken (N-VA) said on social media he welcomed initiatives to review the law and called for a fundamental overhaul of the legislation.
Francken also pointed to the perceived unfairness of the ruling, referring to a case in which an inflammatory remark in a left-wing tabloid by writer Herman Brusselmans led to no convictions. Brusselmans had said he “wanted to stab a pointy knife through the throat of every Jew” he encountered.
“That is pure arbitrariness. And that is largely down to the law itself: It is too vaguely worded and therefore leaves too much room for interpretation by the judge,” Francken said.
“In the past, legal restrictions on freedom of expression were formulated much more strictly. They mainly centred on defamation, libel and specific incitements to violence.”
He said that “this was progressively expanded to include the catch-all term ‘incitement to hatred'” and noted that this was too vague.
“It goes without saying that the courts would then swing all over the place. We need to get back to basics: Only calls for violence (or the glorification thereof) should be punishable.”
Even left-wing commentators at the Flemish daily De Morgen agreed that the conviction of Van Langenhove over his speech went too far.
The French-speaking centrist party Les Engagés, a partner in De Wever’s federal coalition, reacted negatively to a possible change to the law.
“Freedom of expression is essential, but it can never serve as a pretext for racist, discriminatory remarks or incitement to hatred,” party president Yvan Verougstraete said.
“Les Engagés refuse any challenge to this legislation, which protects human dignity and sets clear limits essential for living together.”
The 1981 law, commonly known as the Moureaux Law after the Socialist politician Philippe Moureaux, was originally designed to combat racism and xenophobia but has increasingly been criticised for being used to punish statements that many consider legitimate public debate, particularly on immigration and cultural issues.
Some on the Right claim that was the idea behind the law all along.
A right-leaning news outlet in Belgium, 21News, violated journalistic ethics by publishing the complete transcript of the speech made by US Vice-President J D Vance at the Munich Security Conference in 2025, the French-speaking ethics commission ruled. https://t.co/7d848mtgi3
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