Brussels, Belgium – The recent arrest of a Palestinian activist in Belgium has made the alarm as an organization for which he works describes the incident as “a form of harassment of the state”.
Mohammed Khatib, the 35 -year -old European coordinator of Samidoun, a global solidarity network for Palestinian prisoners, was arrested on April 21 after attending a daily demonstration demanding the end of the Israel genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.
Each evening, dozens of people, some sports keffiyehs, meet on the steps of the old scholarship in Brussels to drape a flag of Palestine in the steps and sing slogans of solidarity in English, Arab and French.
A police presence is usual, but Khatib felt uncomfortable when he noticed that an officer photographed him
He left around 7:30 p.m. (5.30 p.m. GMT) and was arrested nearby for what he called a “spontaneous” identity check by local police.
He was arrested and taken to a police van at a central station. Thirty supporters gathered outside, chanting: “Free our comrade!” Before being dispersed by the riot police around 10 p.m. (8 p.m. GMT).
Khatib was then transferred to a neighboring station. He was questioned without a lawyer and released around 5 a.m. (3:00 a.m. GMT).
Khatib said he spent hours waiting in a cell before they were asked for a few minutes on an incident in April 2024 during which he was attacked with a knife. There was also a brief trip to the hospital for non -urgent drugs.
“They did everything they could to keep me,” Khatib told Tel Aviv Tribune.
The Brussels prosecutor’s office told Tel Aviv Tribune: “Mohammed Khatib was arrested as part of an investigation into the events that took place in April 2024. He was released after questioning.”
Belgian tensions with the pro-Palestine movement
A Palestinian refugee born in the Ein El Hilweh camp in Lebanon in 1990, Khatib fled to Belgium alone at the age of 19, said asylum and co-founded Samidoun a year later in 2011. The campaign for the rights of Palestinians incarcerated in Israel is his only occupation.
Samidoun’s position on Israel-Palestine has led Khatib designated as a threat of “serious” security by the Coordination Unit for Threats Analysis (Cuta), an independent organization which is justice and the internal ministries of Belgium.
Khatib said that agents on April 21 justified the arrest initially with the designation of the cuta.
He marked the second time that he was arrested. In October 2023, he was arrested during a demonstration after refusing to stop waving a flag of Palestine.
The last detention was “nothing in terms of what we face,” he said, referring to efforts in certain Western nations to reduce the pro-Palestine movement.
Samidoun described the arrest “a form of state harassment targeting an eminent leader, not only of Samidoun, but of the growing movement against the genocide in progress in occupied Palestine”.
“It is difficult not to see it under this day,” the refugees and immigration lawyers told Tel Aviv Tribune, Benoit Dhondt. “Many people live in a state of schizophrenia due to the way Gaza genocide is invisible in Europe.”
Meanwhile, “the disproportionate police of the pro-Palestine movement makes you very difficult to understand what is really going on,” he said.
The author and journalist David Cronin wrote in electronic intifada: “If the Belgian authorities enjoy success in Muzzling Mohammed Khatib and Samidoun, then we must ask: who is the next one? All Solidarity activists in Palestine are in danger. ”
In May of last year, the police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse a peaceful demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy in Brussels under the instructions of Mayor Boris Dillies, who said that the demonstration was not authorized. An open letter signed by Amnesty International described the measure as “contrary to international law”.
Earlier this month, the police arrested around forty demonstrators when a demonstration at the United States Embassy had overtime.
In a report on the state of the right of protest published in July, Amnesty noted that administrative arrest “is increasingly used to prevent people from participating in demonstrations” in Belgium.
Human rights and immigration lawyer Helene Crokart told Tel Aviv Tribune that arrests “are not isolated incidents” and “sometimes equivalent to outright intimidation”.
Samidoun, Khatib in the reticle
On October 15, the secretary of the State of the State for migration and asylum Nicole de Moor, a Christian democrat, announced a procedure to strip Khatib, which she called a “hate preacher”, asylum.
“Even if someone has already been recognized as a refugee, but this person turns out to be an extremist, recognition can be withdrawn,” she said.
On the same day, the United States and Canada have put Samidoun black list, judging it a “simulated charity” and accusing it of raising funds for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an “terrorist” organization designated.
Samidoun denied allegation.
Germany prohibited Samidoun in 2023, alleging that it celebrated the attacks led by October 7, 2023, in southern Israel. Khatib said: “Some Palestinians distributed Baklava in the street. And we were there with Samidoun’s flag. ”
Khatib was also forbidden to enter Switzerland for 10 years, which only occurs when an individual presents what is considered a “concrete” threat to national security, according to a spokesman for the Swiss government. He was not allowed to enter the Netherlands for a university conference in October.
During the October 2023 attacks, 1,139 people were killed and more than 200 were taken captive in Gaza. Since then, the last War of Israel against Gaza has killed more than 52,000 people, including more than 17,000 children, in the besieged enclave. Israel justified the assault to try to crush Hamas.
According to a spokesperson for Cuta, Samidoun is classified as an “extremist” organization, which “is not a criminal offense”.
“We are more interested in keeping an eye on leadership, members, which they do and say how they disrupt public order and the group they potentially target,” said the spokesperson.
The right -wing government of Belgium, appointed in February, is much more sympathetic in Israel than its predecessor.
Prime Minister Bart de Wever of the new Flemish Alliance party said Belgium would not stop Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu despite a mandate from the International Criminal Court (ICC) for his arrest for crimes against humanity. Four months earlier, Liberal Prime Minister Alexander de Cro said the opposite.
The coalition led by De de Wever intends to “prohibit dangerous radical organizations such as Samidoun because of their links with terrorism or for the spread of anti -Semitism”, according to official documents.
But a ban would probably take a long time to implement because the Belgian posts depend on the decisions of the European Union and the United Nations Security Council.
The successor of Moor, Anneleen Van Bossuyt, supports the initiative to revoke the status of refugee of Khatib. Such a decision is made independently by the general commissioner for refugees and stateless people and must count on proof of a serious crime.
The decision to withdraw the status of someone can be on appeal, but once finalized, the immigration office could make an order for a person to leave the country.
The case depends on the material that the authorities have declared that they do not share, even with Khatib.
Dhondt warned against a “scary effect” on freedom of expression.
The government uses the case of Khatib as a “propaganda tool” to demonstrate solid policies on “extremism”, he said, even if it “cannot really say why (Khatib represents a threat)”.
Khatib denies all the allegations of hatred speeches.
“If they had something they could use against me, I wouldn’t be sitting here. I would be in prison.
“The purpose of this intimidation is to silence the movement, to make an example of us and to say:” If you do the same, it is your future “. We will fight this.”
‘Defamation campaign’
Khatib previously asked that Israel be “dismantled” and said: “We do not call Hamas in Israel a terrorist attack. We call it justified resistance. “
Seen as line positions lasts by some, the general public activists have moved away from Samidoun but urged Brussels to maintain freedom of expression.
The League for Human Rights, a non -profit organization that criticized the Belgian authorities for authorizing the transit of weapons to Israel, does not fully approve of Khatib’s opinions but “reiterates the need to protect freedom of expression, including for declarations which” offend, shocking or disturbing “, according to the European Court of Human Rights”.
“Although the positions defended by Mohammed Khatib and Samidoun can undeniably be described as radical, … To our knowledge, they have never been prosecuted for any criminal offense (including for anti -Semitic declarations) and did not cause public disorder,” said the rights defense group in a report in 2024.
The group has linked the case of Khatib to other measures, such as local prohibitions on keffiyehs and other pro-Palestine symbols and the temporary suspension of decisions on Palestinian asylum applications. The report concludes that the lack of decision on the revocation of Khatib’s refugee status suggests insufficient evidence against him.
The union of progressive Jews in Belgium denounced a “smear campaign” against Khatib.
“Whatever political differences we can have, this threat is intolerable and shakes the very foundations of our democracy.”
