Belgian right-wingers: ‘Kill pro-climate girls, kill Jews’

This 17 August 2019 Dutch language video shows a reporter of Belgian Knack weekly. She interviews (drunk) far-right visitors of the Pukkelpop music festival. They shout: ‘Leftist rats, fuck off!’

On 15 August 2019, 18-year-old Belgian pro-climate activist Anuna De Wever had been invited to speak at Pukkelpop, one of many music festivals in summer in Belgium, to speak on the 20-27 Sepember global pro-climate strikes.

However, during her speech, a group of far-right men booed and heckled her, made obscene gestures, and threw alcohol at her.

The far-right men had flags depicting the Flemish lion.

The official flag of Flanders depicts a lion with red claws and red tongue. However, the men at the festival had flags with a black lion with black claws and black tongue. Wikipedia writes about that version:

It is not an official symbol. It was, however, used by the Flemish fighting alongside Nazi and SS troops [in World War II], and is as such also known as the collaboration [with Hitler] flag. It is today used by right[-wing] movements.

Over Pukkelpop en Anuna De Wever. Net m'n dochter aan de lijn gehad, zwaar aangedaan. Nadat Ananu gespot was aan hun tent hebben jonge mannen hen wakker gehouden met doodsbedreigingen, bekogeld met flessen vol urine en partytent vernield. Ze krijgen nu bescherming van security.

— Jeroen de Preter (@JeroendePreter) August 16, 2019

In this tweet, journalist Jeroen de Preter of Belgian Knack weekly writes about what happened next at Puppelpop. Translated:

About Pukkelpop and Anuna De Wever. Now, my daughter calling on the phone, very upset. After Anuna had been spotted at their tent, young men have stopped them from sleeping with death threats, thrown bottles full of urine at them and destroyed their party tent. Security is protecting them now.

The right-wingers also tore open several other tents as they thought Anuna De Wever might sleep there.

Security later reported they had banned the extreme right version of the Flemish flag at the festival. These flags had been distributed by the racist Vlaams Belang party.

This photo shows members of the Vlaams Belang youth branch.

Vlaams Belang, like Donald Trump and other right-wingers deny climate change and support Big Oil.

Politicians of Vlaams Belang and also of the ‘moderate Flemish nationalist’ N-VA were very angry that the Pukkelpop organisation had banned the far-right version of the Flemish flag. They talked only about these flags, not what the men of these flags had done to teenage pro-climate girls.

Belgian (‘center-right’) daily De Gazet van Antwerpen, 20 August 2019, interviewed Robert Kaerts about what his 17-year old daughter went through at Pukkelpop. Kaerts is upset that politicians like Peter de Roover (N-VA) do not seem to care about what happened to those 17-year-old girls.

The far-rightists surrounded the girls’ tents all night. They tore open tents to find Anuna de Wever, one of them laid down on top of a girl, they shouted ‘green whores’, ‘kill Anuna’, ‘kill all Jews‘, they threw bottles full of urine, they tore up the party tent.

In spite of security protection, during the next night, there was again an attack on the party tent, and a bucket full of urine was put outside the girls’ tent. Robert Kaerts: ‘I cannot stop racking my brains about what would have happened if they would have succeeded in finding Anuna’.

See also here. And here.