21 April 2016

Belgian minister defends claim many Muslims 'danced' after Brussels attacks

The Belgian interior minister on Wednesday denied stigmatising Muslims after he said many of them danced in celebration after the Brussels terror attacks.

“Everyone knows that these things happened. Do we have to wait for an official police report to confirm the existence of these facts,” Jan Jambon told parliament during tough questioning from the opposition.

Jambon, the senior member in government of the main Flemish nationalist party the New Flemish Alliance (NVA), denied he was stoking tensions with Belgium’s Muslim community, which numbers about 600,000 out of a population of 11 million.

“I don’t have the police report. There was [dancing], but not much ... several services have confirmed to me that these weren’t rumours and that they saw this on the ground,” he said. “What do you think, that I am going to stigmatise them by naming streets and districts?” [The Guardian] Read more