After three recent cases of attempted censorship of Belgian newspapers, have we reached a tipping point in terms of freedom of expression?
We have never experienced a situation like this in Belgium. There is an accumulation of cases, including one which aims to preventively censor the press, which is prohibited by the Constitution. We are therefore facing a serious attack on freedom of expression. We do not understand why justice persists, when it knows that it is in error.
Censorship for an article in Le Soir: the editorial staff of La Libre condemns
In Belgium, there are lots of possibilities for seeking compensation from a journalist: defamation proceedings, slander, the ethics council… but not censorship. I would also have liked to have contacted the Council of Journalistic Ethics in the case of the Sudinfo article, that would have been more proportionate. But a Minister of the Interior (Annelies Verlinden, Editor’s note) who attacks a media outlet and who demands that articles it publishes be censored in the future (which the minister denies), is unconstitutional.
At the European Federation of Journalists, we are used to this type of situation in other European countries, but if there is one country where I did not expect to see this type of action multiply, it’s in Belgium. These actions trivialize the censorship of a newspaper, and end up causing self-censorship. We are experiencing cases of abusive legal proceedings where the goal is not to obtain compensation, but to silence journalists by overwhelming them with legal recourse.
How can the Belgian press protect itself against new attempts at censorship?
The European Commission has already issued a directive to counter these abusive legal procedures aimed at preventing the work of journalists (SLAPPs), but the latter is only valid for transnational cases. So we want states to pass “anti-SLAPP” laws that target domestic cases. The other way is to denounce these practices, because the public is not sensitive enough to them, while they hinder the citizen’s right to be informed.
