Politician gets a year in prison for “racist” pictures that others spread

Published 13 March 2024 at 09.51

Foreign. Dries Van Langenhove, former Belgian Member of Parliament, has been sentenced to an effective one-year prison sentence and a 16,000 euro fine for spreading “racist” joke pictures on the Internet.

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The story goes back to September 2018, Nieuwsblad reports. Then an audit revealed that “racist, sexist and anti-Semitic” memes were being spread in chat groups linked to the right-wing organization Schild & Vrienden.

An investigation was launched against the organization's founder and leader Dries Van Langenhove, who until last year sat in the Belgian parliament as an independent candidate for Vlaams Belang.

Now the politician is sentenced for having been responsible for the chat groups and the politically incorrect message spread there.

Van Langenhove is sentenced to one year in prison and 16,000 euros in fines for “negationism”, incitement to hatred and racial segregation. On top of that, he receives a ten-month suspended prison sentence for violating the Arms Act, because he offered pepper spray for sale.

The judge uses a set of so-called PK platitudes to justify the harsh sentence.

– He has dragged the other defendants into his racist, hateful, Nazi and history-denying discourse through which he pits people against each other. He has demonstrated a far-reaching lack of standards and contempt for basic values ​​and rights. He creates a hostile atmosphere in the society. It contributes to contradictions, discord and conflicts and thus encourages physical and psychological violence. All this indicates a particularly dangerous attitude, reads part of the rant.

Hans Rieder, Dries Van Langenhove's lawyer, announced immediately after the hearing that he would appeal the verdict.

– This is about a judge organizing illegal interrogations, that's all I can say about this case. We will therefore immediately appeal, says the lawyer to Nieuwsblad.