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EU civil servant acquitted of incitement to hatred for antisemitic remarks

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The Brussels Court of Appeal has acquitted a European civil servant of incitement to hatred while upholding the conviction for assault and battery of an anti-Semitic nature, Belgian daily Le Soir reported, writes Yossi Lempkowicz.

In July 2015, the man, Stefan Grech, had insulted and hit in the face another European civil servant at the terrace of a café, calling her “dirty Jew”.  The victim had challenged the man brandishing a metal plate bearing the words “Mussolini”. She told him that “Mussolini was a dictator”. A discussion ensued and the man called the victim a “dirty Jew” and made threats. “Dirty Jew! You Jews should all have been killed!”, he shouted.

With his plate, he hit the victim on the head and tried to strangle her. The following day, the victim lodged a complaint. She also presented a medical certificate attesting a cranial trauma, a cerebral concussion and pains in the head.

In the first instance, the victim and Unia, Belgium’s official anti-discrimination body, which had filed a civil suit, had won all the charges, the defendant having been found guilty of anti-Semitic remarks.

The Brussels Court of first instance had sentenced the European official in 2018 for incitement to hatred to a probationary sentence of three years, during which he had to undergo therapy against his alcohol addiction and training in tolerance and the fight against anti-Semitism.

The Court of Appeal considered the facts to be “extremely serious”, revealing that the defendant could be, in certain circumstances, “hateful and hostile towards a person because of his religious conviction”. But it concludes that they do not constitute “encouragement, exhortation or instigation of anyone to anything”.

Unia said it will not lodge an appeal in a higher court.

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The ruling caused a reaction from the Belgian League against Antisemitism, whose president, Joël Rubinfeld expressed his deep concern in an open letter published in Brlgian daily newspaper Le Soir.

‘’The judgment has a principled scope: in Belgium, one would have the right to publicly say to someone “dirty Jew” and to regret that “all” Jews were not exterminated, without this constituting an infraction of the penal law. This is done on the incomprehensible grounds that regretting that not all Jews were exterminated would not incite hatred against Jews,’’ the letter reads.

He added, ‘’If such a decision were to be followed, the law against racism would be emptied of all scope. Only the direct and explicit incitement to exterminate the Jews (or any other minority) would still be punished: “you must kill the Jews”. Any other, slightly less explicit formulation, such as “the Jews do not deserve to live”, “Hitler should have finished the job”, would be permitted by law because it would not involve incitement.’’

‘’In Belgium, and more generally in Europe, anti-Semitism kills. And the act is caused by incitement to hatred. Everyone knows this, and all the studies show it. Belgian law is supposed to protect us Jews, as well as all other minorities, from incitement to hatred or violence of which we are regularly victims,’’ Rubinfeld wrote in the letter.

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