Frank Vanhecke facing "political death"

10/11/2008

At Belgium's request, the European Parliament is expected next month to lift the immunity of one of its members, a former leader of the rightist Vlaams Belang party, exposing him to racism charges. Describing himself as a victim of blatant persecution, Frank Vanhecke told Haaretz the decision could spell his "political death." ...

Vlaams Belang is an anti-immigration in the Flemish Community of Belgium that advocates the independence of Flanders and separation from the French-speaking population.

Although it's one of the country's largest parties, and the second largest political party in Flanders, it is kept out of government by the Cordon Sanitaire, a pact between all other Belgian parties to refrain from joining a coalition with Vlaams Belang.

Belgian justice minister and Deputy Prime Minister Jo Vandeurzen asked the European Parliament in April to lift Vanhecke's immunity so that Vanhecke can be prosecuted for a short article which appeared in 2005 a local party brochure, that linked an act of vandalism at a Christian cemetery to the Muslim minority in Sint-Niklaas, a city in the Flemish province of East Flanders...

If convicted under Belgian anti-racism legislation, Vanhecke could lose his seat in the European Parliament as well as his right to be active in politics. Last Monday, the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs voted to lift Vanhecke's immunity, leaving the final vote for a plenary session in December. Commentators following the case say the December vote is a mere formality on the way to lifting Vanhecke's immunity.

"The Belgian government is persecuting me because I'm a member of a party which calls for Flemish independence," MEP Frank Vanhecke told Haaretz last week. In Vlaams Belang's official reaction to the Monday vote, the party said that "Belgium really is a banana republic." ...

Naets also pointed out that Vlaams Belang is a Flemish-secessionist party which aims for the independence of Flanders from Belgium. He declared that this, and not racism, is the real reason for an attempt to ban Vanhecke from the coming European elections.

"In the almost 30 years that I have known Vanhecke [...] I have never been able to catch him out on any form of racism whatsoever," Naets said. "Vanhecke will be prosecuted because he is a symbol for a party that wants to abolish Belgium."

Before it became Vlaams Belang in 2004, the party was called Vlaams Blok. It changed its name and adjusted its platform after Belgium's supreme court declared it was a racist movement, effectively banning it from the political establishment.