Following the meeting between Minister of Internal Security Henri Kox and the responsible parliamentary commission, MPs from both the Christian Social People’s Party (CSV) and the Pirate Party condemned statements made by adr MP Fernand Kartheiser.
It was the explicit goal of the police to avoid situations like the ones that occurred two weeks ago. Nothing was left to chance this time and that was the right decision to take, according to CSV MP Laurent Mosar.
Mosar stated that while his party had criticised the Police Directorate two weeks ago, it is now happy to acknowledge that “practically everything went perfectly” last weekend.
However, MP Fernand Kartheiser has a different view of the situation. For him and his party, the events of last weekend left a lot of questions up in the air, including whether the deployment of the water cannon provided by the Belgian police was “really necessary”.
Kartheiser also criticised the use of police dogs, pointing out that there are images showing a woman with her children being “slightly scared” because an unmuzzled police dog barked at them.
This statement was heavily condemned by Laurent Mosar, who described it as “extremely dreadful”. Mosar stressed that it is the parents’ responsibility not to use their children as instruments for protests. The CSV MP reiterated that “the criticisms brought forward by the adr are completely incomprehensible”.
MP Marc Goergen from the Pirate Party also showed himself bewildered regarding the statements made by Fernand Kartheiser.
Goergen suspects that the adr has decided to criticise the police “to protect its fans”, pointing out that “those were after all the fans of the adr shouting ‘adr, adr’ during the protest”. The Pirate Party MP stressed that his party has assured the police that they have its support to continue in this way.
In fact, the adr is in a bit of a predicament. On the one hand, it is the only party that is still being supported by many of the protesters due to its stance on Covid-19 policies. But on the other hand, the party is generally in favour of a strong police presence, according to Kartheiser.
Kartheiser stressed that it is important for the adr that the right to protest is not abused. For this reason, the party will continue to support the police in their efforts to prevent rioting and other violent incidents in the capital.
The adr MP added that in his opinion, foreigners are responsible for the recent escalations.
Both the CSV and the adr expect that the police will once again be present with an increased number of units next weekend.
