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Antwerp mosques file a complaint against Van Greeks and VB

The Al Aqsa Mosque and the adjacent Cultural Center Mosque Omar are filing a complaint against Vlaams Belang and chairman Tom Van Greeks. The reason is the distribution of images of a queue of people at the mosques on the day of the Feast of Sacrifice.

The Feast of Sacrifice took place on July 31 this year, in the middle of the second wave. According to a message from the Cultural Center Mosque Omar on Facebook, everything went according to the applicable rules. ‘Due to the corona virus and the accompanying measures by the authorities, this party was also forced to take place in their own social bubble this year’, it sounds. The vast majority of the mosques also closed their doors voluntarily, so that the sacrificial feast prayer hardly took place. Only a few mosques decided – in accordance with the corona measures – to open their doors to a limited number of believers, including the Al Aqsa Mosque in Antwerp-North. ‘

The mosque admits that at a certain moment it became busier in the street: ‘Because there are security measures in place at the entrance and in the mosque itself, such as disinfecting the hands, at a certain moment it became increasingly busy in the street, after which the police came to maintain the distance in the public space. The police did not establish any violations of the security measures and also took note of a flawless organization in the mosque. ‘

Scapegoat

The Al Aqsa Mosque and Omar Mosque Cultural Center say they will file a complaint against Tom Van Greeks and Vlaams Belang for inciting discrimination and inciting hatred. Van Greeks shared images of forty people waiting in the street in front of the mosque. A video of the snapshot before the arrival of the police was made and published by Mr Tom Van Greeks and his party the Vlaams Belang, with a corresponding comment:

“INCREDIBLE! Today at the mosques in Antwerp-North. This is the real reason why the whole of the province of Antwerp is being punished. ”

That is incitement to hatred and discrimination, according to the mosques: ‘After all, a snapshot of crowds on the street in no way reflects the way in which measures were taken inside the mosque, and certainly not of mosques in Antwerp-North that closed their doors on this day. . (…) Our intention with this report is therefore to indicate that this post on social media has the clear intention to label Muslims and mosques as the cause of the increase in the corona numbers and to portray us as a community as scapegoats. ‘

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