Police surrounding “NatCon” Conference venue; Paul Coleman, Executive Director of ADF International / ADF International
CV NEWS FEED // This week, a mayor of a municipality in Belgium attempted to get police to shut down an international conservative summit taking place in the city. In response, the conference’s organizers filed an emergency legal challenge against the mayor.
Non-profit legal organization Alliance Defending Freedom International published a news release on April 16 that it backed the emergency legal challenge, which argues that the Brussels authorities “[ordered] police to shut down peaceful conference because it platformed views that were ‘ethically conservative.’”
Emir Kir, the mayor of the Saint-Josse-ten-Noode district in the Brussels-Capital region of Belgium, reportedly issued the order to the police.
According to ADF International, Kir’s order “states that some of the speakers ‘are reputed to be traditionalists’ and that the conference must be banned ‘to avoid foreseeable attacks on public order and peace’.”
At about noon on April 16, the venue for the conference was surrounded by police, and conference speakers and attendees were blocked from entering. German Catholic Cardinal Ludwig Müller, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and ADF International Executive Director Paul Coleman, a British lawyer, are speakers on the conference agenda.
Following the shutdown attempt, Coleman stated in the news release, “Open dialogue is supposed to be at the core of European politics; yet here in the capital of the EU, a thoughtful exchange on policy has been shut down by unilateral decree. This is a watershed moment where the true censorship crisis in Europe is on full public display.”
Later on April 16, National Conservatism announced that the first day of the event eventually was able to take place, posting on its X account:
Today, we overcame attempts by Brussels authorities to silence us and had a wonderful Day One of NatCon Brussels 2. See you again tomorrow!
The conference’s organizers issued a statement, shared with CatholicVote, on the shutdown attempt.
“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the Belgian authorities’ attempts to shut down, without due process, the National Conservatism Conference underway in Brussels,” the statement reads:
Today’s events are the culmination of several days of efforts to make it impossible for this event to take place, motivated by political opposition to national conservative ideas and undertaken in an illiberal manner antithetical to the ideas of tolerance, freedom, pluralism, and open debate that are meant to be the hallmark of liberal societies.
We say this as critics of national conservatism, not allies. Indeed, we believe that national conservatism as a political and ideological movement is profoundly mistaken, both empirically and normatively, on most fronts.
The statement added that such differences of opinion warrant public debate and conversation, rather than silencing.
The organizers continued, “claims of public safety and order provide no justification to shut down a peaceful event; the heckler’s veto is the tool of authoritarians and thugs.”
“The use of public authority and police force to shut down peaceful conferences and public meetings is anathema to a free and open society,” the organizers’ statement concluded:
We are critical of national conservatism as an ideology because of its incompatibility with the principles of a society of free people. But we are opposed much more deeply to the illiberalism on display in Brussels today.
