► How are the demonstrators federated at European level?
They were nearly 50,000 in Brussels, during the massive demonstration of January 23 against health measures. The mobilization, which degenerated into violence, is the strongest recorded so far in the European capital. Previous parades had gathered no more than 35,000 people.
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The ranks of the discontented were swelled by the presence of French, Dutch, German, Polish, Romanian neighbors, as evidenced by the presence of flags in the crowd. The main international structure to carry the mobilization was the European United for Freedom, coordinated by a Belgian, Tom Meert, which claims 800,000 sympathizers in 22 European countries. Another collective, the World Wide Demonstration for Freedom, also beat the recall. In all, nearly 600 local European organizations got involved.
► What are their demands?
The European United for Freedom refuses to present itself as an organization of corona sceptics. “We are against disproportionate measures which violate human rights and which take into account in a very unilateral way the consequences in the different areas of society”, explains the official site accessible in 16 languages, including French, English, German, Spanish, but also Esperanto or Arabic. “It almost feels like the worst disease we imported from China was not the virus, but totalitarianism”, comments the organization.
The figures of the movement, who held a press conference before the demonstration, have varied profiles. Santa Depuydt, freelance journalist and president of the Children Health Defense Europe association, fights against the vaccination of children. Alexandra Henrion Caude, a Franco-British geneticist, questions the effectiveness of the messenger RNA vaccine. Vera Sharav, American of Romanian origin and Holocaust survivor, known for her fight against certain practices of the biomedical industry, goes so far as to mix things up. She considers that the “unvaccinated are vilified like Jews were in the 1930s or 1940s”.
► What do we know about the violent individuals of the mobilization?
According to the Belgian police, 400 to 500 » people have “deliberately sought confrontation” in this demonstration, which ended under smoke bombs and water cannons. The police carried out 239 arrests, including fourteen French, nine Dutch, three Germans and two Poles.
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The majority of those arrested, arrested for “disturbing public order”, were released after verification of their identity. But eleven of them were taken into custody for “possession of a weapon, rebellion against the police and/or degradation”. Among them,“six Belgians, three French, a Dutchman and an Afghan”. Three of them were minors.
Identification of other violent individuals is ongoing, including in other protests that have taken place in Brussels every Sunday since November 21. The prosecution, which reported Wednesday, January 26 on the progress of the investigation, justified a processing time which “may seem long” due to the need for “gather evidence to identify the perpetrators and impute to them criminally reprehensible acts”. Real painstaking work is involved, including viewing and cross-checking all CCTV images.