In Europe, recently, it was found that a news outlet that had published a speech by US Vice President J.D. Vance has now beenaccusedof journalistic misconduct. In February 2025, Vance gave his nowfamous speechat the Munich Security Conference, in which he sharply criticized Europe's heavy-handed censorship and its rapidly deteriorating democratic values. The next day, Belgian news website21Newspublished Vance's speech in full, without commentary.
Nearly a year later, in February 2026, after anonymous complaints, Belgium's press "ethics" bodyruledthat 21News had acted in breach of journalistic standards by publishing the speech without "context" or "correction" before publication, thereby risking that Vance's message would "circulate without sufficient critical distance."
Éric Dujardin, the director of 21News, in response,arguedthat publication does not equal endorsement and that "readers should be able to access primary sources without mandatory interpretation,"accordingtoThe European Conservative.
Revealingly, while Belgium's Press Ethics Council did not trust readers with Vance's speech on the factual lack of freedom of speech in Europe, the Belgian courtshad no issueswith a magazine column that incited violence against Belgian Jews.
In August 2024, the Belgian author Herman Brusselmanswrotein the weekly magazineHumothat Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza made him "become so enraged that I want to ram a pointed knife straight into the throat of every Jew I meet."
The European Jewish Association, Belgium's Jewish Information and Documentation Centre and the Belgian anti-discrimination organization Unia took legal action against Brusselmans, leading to criminal charges of incitement to murder, incitement to hatred and violence, and Holocaust denial. In March 2025, the Ghent Criminal CourtacquittedBrusselmans on all charges. The judge wrote:
"The court recognises that certain members of the Jewish community could possibly take offence at phrases used in some columns, but stresses that the author's expressing his opinion is protected by the right to freedom of expression.... He wished to express criticism in his well-known style, he wished to provoke, but he did not exceed the boundaries of what is punishable by law. The column does not show that he intended to incite hatred or violence against the Jewish community or to deny the Holocaust."
Get it? On one hand, the public cannot be trusted with information that has not been chewed up and curated for them beforehand, including an unfiltered speech by Vance. On the other hand, screeds inciting violence against Jews are perfectly acceptable, and all at once, out of the blue -- poof! -- suddenly the Belgian judicial system cares about "freedom of speech" if it is spoken by people whose votes are regarded as "necessary."
Israeli Ambassador to Belgium Idit Rosenzweig-Abupointedout:
"What if someone said in Belgian press 'I'm so angry I want to stick a knife in the neck of every Muslim I meet'?
Source: Gatestone Institute :: Articles
