Belgian defence minister Theo Francken has said the country’s new offence of glorifying terrorism could be applied to foreign speakers booked for ManiFiesta, the annual festival of the Marxist Workers’ Party of Belgium (PVDA/PTB), due in Ostend this weekend.
Belgium’s revised penal code entered into force on September 1, replacing the one from 1876. It makes public praise of terrorist offences, and public support for terrorist organisations, a criminal matter for the courts.
Francken, of the centre-right N-VA, wrote that the provision could now be used against what he called “the commie festival of Jew-hatred Manifiesta”, tagging interior minister Bernard Quintin.
The immediate trigger was the announced appearance of Hasan Piker, a controversial “shock-jock”American online commentator with a large following, has a record of remarks that critics call antisemitic and an apology for political violence.
He claimed that “America deserved 9/11” due to its history of foreign interventionism. He frequently states that Israel is “a thousand times worse than Hamas” and has explicitly stated that he would vote for Hamas over Israel.
Piker has used his platform to label Zionism a “mental illness” and has frequently directed aggressive rhetoric toward both Israeli citizens and American Jewish lawmakers who align with Israel.
He openly expresses admiration for communist authoritarians like Mao Zedong, responsible for millions of deaths, and has famously worn a Mao jacket to public speaking events
Likewise, French rapper Médine Zaouiche (known simply as Médine) has a long and highly publicised history of alleged antisemitism and calls for violence.
In August 2023, Médine sparked nationwide outrage after targeting essayist Rachel Khan. Khan is Jewish and the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors who were deported by the Nazis.
The rapper engaged in questionable wordplay regarding her deported grandparents, causing outrage in France.
In an older song titled MC Soraal, Médine sings about “the commerce of the Holocaust”. In the past, he has also made an insulting “quenelle” gesture together with the anti-Semitic comedian Dieudonné.
The billed programme also includes former Colombian president Gustavo Petro, former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, Die Linke co-chair Ines Schwerdtner, Belgian union leaders, writer Tom Lanoye, Syrian singer Omar Souleyman and Palestinian clarinettist Ahmed Hawwash.
PVDA secretary-general Peter Mertens called Francken’s claims half-truths and said democrats should worry when a defence minister appears to threaten a festival because he dislikes its message.
ManiFiesta, he said, was a solidarity gathering of thousands of international guests; the government wanted to discredit social movements rather than answer them.
Mertens accused the defence minister of wanting to silence a political opponent.
Francken replied he had not called for the event to be banned or for PVDA politicians to be prosecuted.
Application of the law, he added, “belongs exclusively to the independent judiciary”.
“The law is the law. It was adopted by parliament and passed every democratic check and balance.”
Accusations that Francken was threatening the opposition were “framing that exists only in the imagination of the left”.
“If the PVDA feels this applies to it, there’s a simple reason for that. Apparently, it likes to hear these messages.” He added that if the communists, “with Hasan’s help, glorify Hamas and incite their comrades against Jews, then they’ve got a big problem”.
ManiFiesta is a long-running left-wing political and cultural weekend organised around the PVDA.
Francken has for months argued that far-left networks in Belgium have grown more organised and more violent, citing security-service assessments and linking some militant protest scenes to the communist party’s orbit, a charge the PVDA rejects.
The festival is scheduled for this weekend.
Activists with the climate collective Code Rood (Code Red) and others have targeted a steel factory in the Belgian city of Charleroi because it delivered steel to Israel. https://t.co/W7QMk9FYcS
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 13, 2025
