Graffiti calling for the death of white people and insults toward police was found on the walls of the town hall of the Belgian town of Zaventem, with the local mayor connecting the statements to Black Lives Matter supporters.
The phrases “death to white people” and “fuck the police” were found written on the side of the building last weekend. Local mayor Ingrid Holemans said that she is taking the statements very seriously and that they are likely connected to the resurgence of the movement inspired by the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white police officer.
“It’s a reaction to what happened in the United States,” Holemans said. She added: “It has to do with the death of George Floyd, the African American who died during a police intervention.”
“And now, someone in Zaventem believes that it is necessary to tag the town hall building. But that, too, is violence. And we cannot fight violence with violence,” Holemans said, according to a Monday report by Belgian news site 7sur7.
Plurality of French Say 'Anti-White' Racism is a Problem in France https://t.co/yhRBTsZWAv
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) June 21, 2020
The mayor said that currently no suspects had been arrested, but she stated that those responsible would be punished and made to do community service.
“People who do this must be aware of what they are doing. This is not the way to talk about problems,” she said.
Whether or not the local police treat the act as a hate crime remains to be seen. But the incident comes just days before the mainstream media and politicians in the UK widely condemned a banner flown on Monday near a football match in Burnley stating that “white lives matter”.
Police in the UK initially stated that they were investigating the man behind the banner, allegedly a Burnley football fan named Jake Hepple. But police said on Tuesday that the incident was not a criminal matter.
“After assessing all the information available surrounding this incident, we have concluded that there are no criminal offences that have been disclosed at this time. We will continue to work with our partners at the football club and within the local authority,” Lancashire Police Chief Superintendent Russ Procter said.
Earlier this month in Paris, anti-mass migration activists Generation Identitaire dropped a similar banner at a BLM protest. Some in the BLM crowd responded by shouting “dirty Jews” at the activists.
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