Peter Stabel, professor of history at the University of Antwerp (UA), received serious threats by email last summer. The author of these threats asked Stabel to give his courses a more “right-handed than left-handed” orientation. AU spokesman Peter De Meyer confirmed the facts on Tuesday.
“University professors often receive threatening e-mails,” says De Meyer. “Especially since the corona pandemic, the problem is increasing.” The author of the threats stipulated that if Stabel did not respond to his email, following his requests, the consequences would be “bloody”.
The facts had not been revealed at the time, but the Marxist historian decided to put an end to the whole affair this month, by publishing a long post on the site of the Antwerp university.
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The author could be a student or a staff member
In this post, Peter Stabel writes that the threatening letter demanded that he further promote the Flemish identity during his lessons and that he explain “why Islam, Negroes, Jews, gays and gypsies are barbarians”.
Peter De Meyer pointed out that the threatening email was well documented. The person who sent the email was obviously very knowledgeable about the topics covered in Stabel’s courses. According to De Morgen, the author of the facts would come from inside the university, because the person would have used the internal network. It could therefore be a member of staff or a student, although the prosecution could not confirm this.
A complaint was already filed last summer. The police were able to identify and question the author, confirms Willem Migom of the Antwerp police. “The prosecutor finally decided to release the person,” Migom said.