For additional context, tensions are already high surrounding the US ambassador after he directly insulted multiple Belgian politicians and also attempted to interfere with local criminal judicial proceedings.
For context: he's accused Belgium of being anti-semitic because a couple of Orthodox Jewish mohels are being prosecuted for practicing illicit medicine (i.e. performing ritual circumcision without a medical license). The investigation started after a complaint was filed by a rabbi, so it's hard to chalk this up to anti-semitisim, but that's modern day US diplomacy for you.
The American ambassador to Canada is also a complete clown. It’s pretty obvious he has an audience of one and absolutely loves the flavour of boot black.
The US ambassador to France is a convicted felon, father of Jared Kushner.
From Wikipedia:
«In February 2026, French authorities restricted Kushner’s direct access to government ministers after he failed to attend a summons from Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, sending a senior embassy official in his place. The French foreign ministry cited an "apparent failure to grasp the basic requirements of the ambassadorial mission".»
The US ambassador to Iceland made an inappropriate comment about Iceland being the 52nd state and was summoned by Icelandic President to explain. A poor joke, apparently.
One almost wonders if the US admin is actively trying to get one of its ambassadors declared persona non grata.
I think it makes a huge amount of difference exactly because of what you stated. A pardon absolves one of the sin as if it didn't happen, legally. It however does not wipe the knowledge from people's mind as if it were the gadget from Men In Black. So, adding the <pardon> bit just adds to the depravity
Everything will be done to support I*rael at any cost. They even fly the flags in their offices, on the doors of their offices, and in the halls of Congress. The United States is an occupied country.
This kind of antagonism comes from the top. China mostly toned it down recently because it is ideology-driven counter-productive, we will see how long it takes the US to do the same.
The former Trump US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, claimed there were “no go zones” in the Netherlands where politicians and cars were being set on fire. He called it “fake news” of course, then denied having ever called it fake news, and then eventually claimed it was a mix-up of countries.
> The American ambassador to Canada is also a complete clown
Since we are talking about American ambassadors, Mike Huckabee, American ambassador to Israel, doesn't seem like to work for America, it feels like he is an ambassador for Israel
I can understand most of what our conservative party does but I do not understand their obsession with Israel. I feel the nation should be supported and deserves to exist, but that they're doing a lot of inhumane things right now and saying that in the USA right now gets you called an antisemite incredibly fast.
Ambassadors to developed nations are typically political appointees, so yeah, they tend to suck. (Versus ambassadors to other nations, which tend to have worked their way up in the Foreign Service).
"... a foreign government using local police to eject reporters over a single question from a public space turned private at the will of the American government is not a minor diplomatic awkwardness."
The fact it's a public space is kind of irrelevant here, if the landowners (the city council, I guess) decide to temporarily allow private use.
If some roads had been closed for film production use etc, the police would similarly be involved in removing people who interfered with the proceedings and didn't leave when asked to. The land owner has given the company exclusive rights to the space for the duration of the event.
Whether ejecting someone from a press event for asking a question you don't like is right or not (I personally think it's not) is irrelevant. At the point they ask you to leave for whatever reason and you don't comply, then it becomes trespass and the police can be asked to remove you.
And that the fuzz "disagreed with detaining them". The real experience involves them doubling, tripling down, etc. and threatening to "find a reason". By their logic, they are never and could never be wrong.
I hope the journalists in question will lodge a complaint with the Belgian police watchdog, Comité P: https://comitep.be
Belgium has been pretty repressive towards certain journalists for a while now. Our "World Press Freedom Index"-score has gone down a fair bit in recent years, and rightly so. The current prime minister and his friends have a history of litigating against journalists who exposed some questionable deals, so it's all to be expected.
Europe (which could mean anything from the UK to Belgium to Hungary to Turkey) never had absolute freedom of speech like the US. But yes, even by the US standards to champion freedom of speech, it is in retreat.
I got the impression that free speech in the US is limited to right to annoy people and harass politicians from distance. Seems to be more restricted than Europe actually since access is tied to private property and its culturally acceptable to remove people from private spaces if you don't like their speech. In this particular case the US embassy appears to have "hacked" their way by claiming that those journalists are a threat but if it was in US they could have been removed and have their free speech in a designated area simply because they don't want them there.
You can give finger to Trump from distance but you can't attend to his press conference to actually ask him stuff if he doesn't like you. That's just slightly different from Turkey where you will be arrested for giving the finger to Erdogan's motorcade(happened a few times, then Turks learned their lessons and in the stats Turkey doesn't arrest as much as Britain).
In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
>I got the impression that free speech in the US is limited to right to annoy people and harass politicians from distance.
That's a pretty trite way of looking at it. You could see for example how important free speech was to the US' civil rights movement in making sure that people were able to organize to challenge the status quo.
>.. if it was in US they could have been removed and have their free speech in a designated area simply because they don't want them there.
US' citizens generally have a better time in courts challenging such things than Europeans do, however.
>In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
But can you tell them whatever you like without facing repercussion if they don't like what they're hearing? No.
In the US, you can still exercise your right to free speech to inform your fellow citizens about the genocide of Gaza - in Europe, most definitely not so easy. (Some European states, its easier than others ...)
US civil rights movement? Seriously? Different times different people. In the latest free speech crusade a rich guy just changed the kind of speech is allowed on his platform. Online speech is heavily restricted on US platforms, as accounts are shadow banned/rate limited/deleted all the time. What freedom of speech examples do you have that involve living people? Every single one freedom of speech fighter are fascist who demand some other speech be suppressed and theirs amplified. Remember their attitudes over the Charlie Kirk assassination reactions?
I don't really care about the courts in this, you win in court and never speak again anything new because you don't want to go through all this again.
And who cares if you can tell someone something if you can't engage with them. Are you casting a spell? why would you care someone hears you? In USA they take you to safe distance behind some barriers to tell your thing. Useless stuff.
I don't know why you believe that you can't inform people about the genocide of Gaza in Europe, in fact Europeans are significantly more informed on this and having flotillas and what not.
US free speech seems to be performative. Its even limited to words, they try not to say the N word and do all their racism without that, then they are relieved when they end up saying the N word and claim freedom of speech win. It's weird from European perspective.
It's crazy how there are still people touting the US as a "champion" of free speech. Dawg, they gave 100 years of prison in collective punishment to ICE protesters, while Epstein victims are silenced. All media, both social and legacy, belong to rich pedophile oligarchs who censor whatever views they dislike.
The Streisand Effect is taking effect in here in terms of surpressing a question has lead to many more people finding out about it, as it should be and I just find some layers of irony about America celebrating its freedom while this whole thing happens because of press freedom.
I did some search on freedom250.org and found this interesting piece of TOS: YOU WAIVE AND HOLD HARMLESS THE COMPANY AND ITS AFFILIATES, LICENSEES, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS FROM ANY CLAIMS RESULTING FROM ANY ACTION TAKEN BY THE COMPANY/ANY OF THE FOREGOING PARTIES DURING, OR TAKEN AS A CONSEQUENCE OF, INVESTIGATIONS BY EITHER THE COMPANY/SUCH PARTIES OR LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.
I am not a lawyer but I am unsure if this terms of service applies to the website or anything in general and if the European correspondent can sue freedom250.org or not
> The Streisand Effect is taking effect in here in terms of surpressing a question has lead to many more people finding out about it
The reason why people like this don't care about the Streisand effect is that they are not afraid about a one-time scandal. The value they get out of harassing their victim and potentially having them stop reporting is worth a bad buzz that people will eventually forget.
Freedom250 is essentially another of Trump's fundraising bodies.
The congressionally created organization that was supposed to run the 250th events was America 250 - it was created in 2016 (IIRC). When Trump was re-elected, he spun up Freedom250, redirected funds to it, and started accepting bribes.
In the book, the Czech police characters frequently complained about the various ways the US ambassador in Prague had too much influence over their investigations, especially of American citizens.
This influence was served as multiple plot devices.
"Belgian police willingly comply with U.S. ambassador's request, and Belgian police stopped your reporting"
FTFY
> a foreign ambassador had Belgian police remove us
Belgian police removed us.
FTFY again.
The article is making a good point, especially the hilarious irony of all the private companies, and US being complicit in limiting press freedom. But it also fails to recognize the agency and complicitness of the Belgian authorities as well, and makes them out to be some sort of innocent bystandards -- "Oh look those poor Belgians being bullied by the big bad US!" If they didn't want to remove you, they simply could have not.
Renting a venue for an event usually comes with the right to decide who may attend and who may not. So if the embassy indeed rented the park, then as soon as the ambassador decided the journalists weren't welcome, they were no longer allowed to stay and the Belgian police were correctly doing their duty in making sure they complied and left.
So the article isn't strictly alleging that the ambassador did anything he didn't have the right to do, but uninviting journalists from an event after they ask a question he preferred not to answer and involving the police instead of directly telling them to leave is maybe not the best use of those rights.
> The officers, we later learned, had been told that Samuel was an ”active threat.”
The ambassador does not have the right to lie about someone being an active threat.
> A few days before the event, Samuel had published on his Instagram that ambassador White tacitly threatened an American and Belgian resident after that citizen urged the Zac Brown Band not to perform at the event
No right to threaten either.
> how we had got into the event (that the American embassy invited us to).Eventually, they accepted that we were journalists and that they disagreed with detaining us.
You dont get to invite journalists and then try to get police to detain them either.
The Belgian police got the information that the person would be an 'active threat' which is just absolutely bizarre and explains the somewhat 'hasty' reaction of the police to quickly remove that person from the event before asking further questions. After they realized their mistake they apologized but of course at that point the journalist wasn't allowed back in.
The ambassador essentially swatted the journalist.
Europe is mighty, independent, strong and decoupling from the US, but also everything bad Europe does is because the big old meanies in the US made them do it against their will
Indeed, I find this story quite interesting (and disturbing) from the Belgian point of view.
Suppose the Belgian government declared the ambassador persona non grata, and sent them on the next plane to Washington. Presumably this would raise their popularity with their own voters, although if Trump noticed he'd throw another temper tantrum. What then?
Yes, the Brussels state is in desperate need of funds, so they rent out public parks, including the Cinquantenaire, for private events. Of course, during such events the park is not accessible to the public, and there's private security who can hand over anyone to the Brussels police to be escorted out of the park. You know, like you can do in your apartment too.
So if Bill White, the US ambassador, pays to rent out the park for, I think it was 2 weeks, they can have whoever they want removed from this public park. Including any reporters.
Presumably the ambassador has diplomatic immunity unfortunately. Really a concept we should get rid of in the day of video calls - there's no longer a strong enough need for foreign diplomats to be in a country to justify putting them above the law.
The police didn't do something outside of their legal powers, that's not what the question is. It's rather unusual for any ambassador to use force to kick out invited reporters from a function.
> So if Bill White, the US ambassador, pays to rent out the park for, I think it was 2 weeks, they can have whoever they want removed from this public park. Including any reporters.
That would be by private security not police though. You aren't generally arrested for annoying an event organiser.
Depends on the laws in Belgium (I've no idea what they are)... in the UK for example trespass by itself is not a criminal matter, even if somebody refuses to leave your property... they need to be doing something else.
Just to clarify. The UK police can assist you in ejecting trespassers, whom you have told to leave your house, in order to "prevent a breach of the peace". They won't arrest or charge trespassers unless they have reason to suspect criminal activity.
In this case the Belgian police might have been justified in escorting the journalists off the premises. But I'm not sure what grounds they had to detain and question them.
Aside: why do Americans always talk about trespassing as something that is done to the trespasser? Isn't trespassing the act itself? If I plant myself in your livingroom uninvited, then surely I am trespassing. Why do so many people instead say that I "get trespassed"?
More and more we see the relationship with authoritarianism (police) and tyranny (those in power) out in the open. We see this with the protests in Germany for Gaza. We see this in Britain with freedom of speech taken away from Palestine supporters. And we see this shamelessly occurring from the Trump world.
I used to balk at those who were too worried at growing government power, but this is a wake up call. Protections have to be in place for the vast majority of people, even if it does allow a few criminals to get away.
I'm a little bit less cynical about it; most police still live with the assumption that all of our allies are trustworthy. If the US says there is a credible threat, they rather exercise caution, and remove the threat.
It's just that the US cannot be trusted anymore, and this will probably be the moment that Belgian police will stop taking US intel as fact.
The power is already curtailed if there's no one to enforce court rulings. An appropriate court says X, the administration just ignores it. How do you get enforcement when law enforcement at every level is willing to answer only to the Executive in Chief?
Well most of the discussions could very easily end up making parallels to nazis since we see similar situations all around us over and over, hence Godwin's law. its generally considered a poor performance though and better arguments are expected.
Palestine is so divisive it should have its own 'law' - both sides are abhorable, both sides are shielded by fanatics who don't want to hear any criticism of their side, despite there being plenty of official evidence with photos, videos, wiki articles and so on.
> The link is police abusing their allowed powers to silence free speech and protest.
If you'd actually read the post you'd know that its about the the US ambassador being an asshole and the Belgian police doing their job (quickly removing a supposed 'active threat' from an event - because that's the only information they had - they later realized their mistake and that the 'active threat' was just a journalist asking inconvenient questions - but at that point the damage was done and the journalist wasn't let back into the event.
Here’s the very problem. The police acting immediately to suppress a supposed threat (even “active” ones, whatever that means) which allows them to silence protest or even inconvenient questions to a public servant…
… and we’re splitting hairs here, but it also allows the police to be manipulated by said public servants to get the protest silenced on their behalf.
The police in this case should have quickly realised the individuals were journalists, posed no real threat (no weapons, explosives, chemicals on their persons) and let them go about their business.
That has always been and will always be the excuse for these kind of rights violations by the police. "Oh it's just what we were told, sorry".
And yes, it's worth bringing up e.g. Palestine or climate activists being beaten, arrested etc. in this context, because it's where the limits and tolerances for this kind of behavior are being tested.
Police, at least in Germany, always justify their transgressions with arguments like: "well we had to beat up these demonstrators because they were engaging in criminal behavior", the "criminal behavior" being "chanting a slogan they don't like" or "carrying an umbrella" (I kid you not).
TLDR: If we continue to allow law enforcement to justify their actions with "well that's just what I was told", we are in for a very bad time, because, it turns out, anything can be justified this way.
>>> It was filled with attempts at American cultural exports such as American football (whose players were Belgian), cheerleaders (from Antwerp), Philly Cheesesteaks
Why is this even on hacker news. take this to reddit.
“ A 250th birthday, paid for by private companies.”
People still don’t get it, and some people, specially these ones that believe themselves particularly knowledgeable about politics, will never get it. Still, I’m going to repeat:
Everything government does is paid by privates. All of it comes from the money they continuously take away from “we the people” to fund their lavish lifestyles and do their little ideological stunts. Every single cent.
The writers of the article are just mad that instead of state taking money away from someone, they just funded an event with voluntary donations. It’s how twisted this all frame of mind is.
So Belgians, are Julius E. O. Fintelmann and Samuel Dempsey/The European Correspondent legitimate/trustworthy journalists or bloggers looking for clout?
The European Correspondent is a legitimate, though young, news organization. I can recommend their newsletter, they write about a nice mix of topics from all across Europe.
So a long article about them being kicked out and all they detail about their own actions is that "we asked him about it"? I'm not sure what "tacitly threatened" means, either.
If they want sympathy, they probably should lay out the details of their actions more clearly. This just reads as some juveniles went to an event, tried to rile up an official (while filming the response in hopes of getting a juicy clip), then were surprised when they were kicked out.
That does seem to be a trend in the stories becoming more about the journalists when the expected no comment response is given as if that was the true intent because of course they are not going to comment to hostile questions. In 2026, this is not news. We know what the administration is doing, so becoming the story is not the story they want it to be. They kept repeating "we were invited" as if that means something. While you can be invited, that invitation can be rescinded. At that point, you can't keep saying "we were invited" as a meaningful response to you being asked to leave regardless of why.
To me, it does feel a bit like some journos looking for clout. Kaitlan Collins is the poster child for this type abuse from Trump even if she's not being manhandled by police.
Belgian here with some knowledge of the EU-centric media operating out of Brussels.
They are legit but have a tiny audience, this accident made them instantaneously recognizable.
Good for them, we are all fed up with Politico (Axel Springer) + Euractiv (Mediahuis) duopoly.
P.S. This is just IMO, but De Wever should not have gone to the event, he lost a lot of political capital there. He should have given the ground to Theo Franken and Vansina to do their clown thing and instead he should have traveled 100km to the Florennes airbase to assist at BAFS-2026 that happened at the same time.
Does it matter? Should they have been kicked out of an event they were invited to for asking a reasonable question? Why are you asking about a news organization and not an extremely fragile man-baby who can't take a tough question?
Many blogs will omit key facts. For example you could write "I was booted out for asking a question" when in actual fact you'd broken in with some wire cutters and then proceeded to pour champagne over all the soft furnishings.
A credible reporter for a credible outlet writing a credible article won't, whether that's the Washignton Post, the Daily Telegraph, or Le Monde, or if it's BBC, RTL, Al Jazzera.
So it's always worth asking "is this a credible source". It used to be fairly easy, to be a journalist you had to have significant backing from a significant institution.
Do you ask this about all of the alt right slop artists that have been legitimized by the Trump admin? Or only about those who pose adversarial questions to the Trump administration?
For additional context, tensions are already high surrounding the US ambassador after he directly insulted multiple Belgian politicians and also attempted to interfere with local criminal judicial proceedings.
For context: he's accused Belgium of being anti-semitic because a couple of Orthodox Jewish mohels are being prosecuted for practicing illicit medicine (i.e. performing ritual circumcision without a medical license). The investigation started after a complaint was filed by a rabbi, so it's hard to chalk this up to anti-semitisim, but that's modern day US diplomacy for you.
The American ambassador to Canada is also a complete clown. It’s pretty obvious he has an audience of one and absolutely loves the flavour of boot black.
The US ambassador to France is a convicted felon, father of Jared Kushner.
From Wikipedia:
«In February 2026, French authorities restricted Kushner’s direct access to government ministers after he failed to attend a summons from Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, sending a senior embassy official in his place. The French foreign ministry cited an "apparent failure to grasp the basic requirements of the ambassadorial mission".»
The US ambassador to Iceland made an inappropriate comment about Iceland being the 52nd state and was summoned by Icelandic President to explain. A poor joke, apparently.
One almost wonders if the US admin is actively trying to get one of its ambassadors declared persona non grata.
It would seem like that, but that's bonus. It's really about the spoils of crony oligarchy.
The US ambassador to France is a <pardoned> convicted felon, father of Jared Kushner.
A distinction without a difference, he was pardoned by Jared's father in law.
I think it makes a huge amount of difference exactly because of what you stated. A pardon absolves one of the sin as if it didn't happen, legally. It however does not wipe the knowledge from people's mind as if it were the gadget from Men In Black. So, adding the <pardon> bit just adds to the depravity
Instead of being a ding, that might make him a serious candidate for presidency then. He can only go up from here.
If true, there must be something seriously, profoundly, wrong in the Beltway.
It somehow seems like a huge number of people are working to throw America down the drain faster.
Everything will be done to support I*rael at any cost. They even fly the flags in their offices, on the doors of their offices, and in the halls of Congress. The United States is an occupied country.
Nowhere was Israel mentioned. Please stop with these antisemitic dogwhistle posts in this thread.
See also Atlas Shrugged
Kushner is literally a Manchurian Candidate but for the tribe
You mean Pete "they're burning politicians" Hoekstra?
https://youtu.be/thIRJLsnIxY
What the US is doing is not that different from wolf tiger diplomacy that China was running during the 2010s
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_warrior_diplomacy
This kind of antagonism comes from the top. China mostly toned it down recently because it is ideology-driven counter-productive, we will see how long it takes the US to do the same.
Being a wolf warrior is one thing, being an utter retard on the other hand...
The former Trump US ambassador to the Netherlands, Pete Hoekstra, claimed there were “no go zones” in the Netherlands where politicians and cars were being set on fire. He called it “fake news” of course, then denied having ever called it fake news, and then eventually claimed it was a mix-up of countries.
Only the best people!
> The American ambassador to Canada is also a complete clown
Since we are talking about American ambassadors, Mike Huckabee, American ambassador to Israel, doesn't seem like to work for America, it feels like he is an ambassador for Israel
I can understand most of what our conservative party does but I do not understand their obsession with Israel. I feel the nation should be supported and deserves to exist, but that they're doing a lot of inhumane things right now and saying that in the USA right now gets you called an antisemite incredibly fast.
I am wondering whether there will be any effect to petition e-7124. It seems unlikely, to me.
* https://noscommunes.ca/petitions/fr/Petition/Details?Petitio...
The French one isn't bad either... seems the US send us their champions
Ambassadors to developed nations are typically political appointees, so yeah, they tend to suck. (Versus ambassadors to other nations, which tend to have worked their way up in the Foreign Service).
The ambassador is a representative of the American President, so that fits.
As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people.
I wish I could disagree with you, but I live in Florida.
The American ambassadors to almost anywhere are complete clowns these days. Obnoxious, unfunny, despicable clowns.
"... a foreign government using local police to eject reporters over a single question from a public space turned private at the will of the American government is not a minor diplomatic awkwardness."
The fact it's a public space is kind of irrelevant here, if the landowners (the city council, I guess) decide to temporarily allow private use.
If some roads had been closed for film production use etc, the police would similarly be involved in removing people who interfered with the proceedings and didn't leave when asked to. The land owner has given the company exclusive rights to the space for the duration of the event.
Whether ejecting someone from a press event for asking a question you don't like is right or not (I personally think it's not) is irrelevant. At the point they ask you to leave for whatever reason and you don't comply, then it becomes trespass and the police can be asked to remove you.
> At the point they ask you to leave for whatever reason and you don't comply, then it becomes trespass and the police can be asked to remove you.
According to the journalists' account, they were never asked to leave.
Though I agree with the rest of your reasoning.
I’d say the embassy did a good job of exporting the American journalistic experience.
The only point of inauthenticity is that neither journalist suffered any lasting physical harm.
> The only point of inauthenticity ...
And that the fuzz "disagreed with detaining them". The real experience involves them doubling, tripling down, etc. and threatening to "find a reason". By their logic, they are never and could never be wrong.
I hope the journalists in question will lodge a complaint with the Belgian police watchdog, Comité P: https://comitep.be
Belgium has been pretty repressive towards certain journalists for a while now. Our "World Press Freedom Index"-score has gone down a fair bit in recent years, and rightly so. The current prime minister and his friends have a history of litigating against journalists who exposed some questionable deals, so it's all to be expected.
free speech, I fear, is in retreat
Which is quite ironic, given all the chuds running around and screeching about _free speech absolutism_.
I'm sorry Mario, your Free Speech is in another Castle!
Europe (which could mean anything from the UK to Belgium to Hungary to Turkey) never had absolute freedom of speech like the US. But yes, even by the US standards to champion freedom of speech, it is in retreat.
never had absolute freedom of speech like the US, which itself (since it was colonised) never had absolute freedom of speech.
I got the impression that free speech in the US is limited to right to annoy people and harass politicians from distance. Seems to be more restricted than Europe actually since access is tied to private property and its culturally acceptable to remove people from private spaces if you don't like their speech. In this particular case the US embassy appears to have "hacked" their way by claiming that those journalists are a threat but if it was in US they could have been removed and have their free speech in a designated area simply because they don't want them there.
You can give finger to Trump from distance but you can't attend to his press conference to actually ask him stuff if he doesn't like you. That's just slightly different from Turkey where you will be arrested for giving the finger to Erdogan's motorcade(happened a few times, then Turks learned their lessons and in the stats Turkey doesn't arrest as much as Britain).
In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
>I got the impression that free speech in the US is limited to right to annoy people and harass politicians from distance.
That's a pretty trite way of looking at it. You could see for example how important free speech was to the US' civil rights movement in making sure that people were able to organize to challenge the status quo.
>.. if it was in US they could have been removed and have their free speech in a designated area simply because they don't want them there.
US' citizens generally have a better time in courts challenging such things than Europeans do, however.
>In contrast, in most of Europe you usually can approach and ask politicians whatever you like.
But can you tell them whatever you like without facing repercussion if they don't like what they're hearing? No.
In the US, you can still exercise your right to free speech to inform your fellow citizens about the genocide of Gaza - in Europe, most definitely not so easy. (Some European states, its easier than others ...)
US civil rights movement? Seriously? Different times different people. In the latest free speech crusade a rich guy just changed the kind of speech is allowed on his platform. Online speech is heavily restricted on US platforms, as accounts are shadow banned/rate limited/deleted all the time. What freedom of speech examples do you have that involve living people? Every single one freedom of speech fighter are fascist who demand some other speech be suppressed and theirs amplified. Remember their attitudes over the Charlie Kirk assassination reactions?
I don't really care about the courts in this, you win in court and never speak again anything new because you don't want to go through all this again.
And who cares if you can tell someone something if you can't engage with them. Are you casting a spell? why would you care someone hears you? In USA they take you to safe distance behind some barriers to tell your thing. Useless stuff.
I don't know why you believe that you can't inform people about the genocide of Gaza in Europe, in fact Europeans are significantly more informed on this and having flotillas and what not.
US free speech seems to be performative. Its even limited to words, they try not to say the N word and do all their racism without that, then they are relieved when they end up saying the N word and claim freedom of speech win. It's weird from European perspective.
It's crazy how there are still people touting the US as a "champion" of free speech. Dawg, they gave 100 years of prison in collective punishment to ICE protesters, while Epstein victims are silenced. All media, both social and legacy, belong to rich pedophile oligarchs who censor whatever views they dislike.
not surprised
> It happened roughly 300 metres from the European Commission, in Europe's capital.
Well, considering the EU's general direction, that is perpahsp appropriate symbolism :-(
> For a continent that lectures others on press freedom
Well, if it becomes difficult to lead by example:
https://europeanjournalists.org/blog/2026/03/03/press-freedo...
then lecturing about it is the thing to do I guess. The US is famous for lecturing other world states about human rights.
The Streisand Effect is taking effect in here in terms of surpressing a question has lead to many more people finding out about it, as it should be and I just find some layers of irony about America celebrating its freedom while this whole thing happens because of press freedom.
I did some search on freedom250.org and found this interesting piece of TOS: YOU WAIVE AND HOLD HARMLESS THE COMPANY AND ITS AFFILIATES, LICENSEES, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS FROM ANY CLAIMS RESULTING FROM ANY ACTION TAKEN BY THE COMPANY/ANY OF THE FOREGOING PARTIES DURING, OR TAKEN AS A CONSEQUENCE OF, INVESTIGATIONS BY EITHER THE COMPANY/SUCH PARTIES OR LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.
also it seems to be an wholly owned subsidiary of a Non profit (national park foundation): https://www.nationalparks.org/freedom-250-faqs#:~:text=NPS%2...
I am not a lawyer but I am unsure if this terms of service applies to the website or anything in general and if the European correspondent can sue freedom250.org or not
> The Streisand Effect is taking effect in here in terms of surpressing a question has lead to many more people finding out about it
The reason why people like this don't care about the Streisand effect is that they are not afraid about a one-time scandal. The value they get out of harassing their victim and potentially having them stop reporting is worth a bad buzz that people will eventually forget.
This is an example of the Bondaz Effect which is a subtype of the Streisand Effect:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolf_warrior_diplomacy#Bondaz_...
Freedom250 is essentially another of Trump's fundraising bodies.
The congressionally created organization that was supposed to run the 250th events was America 250 - it was created in 2016 (IIRC). When Trump was re-elected, he spun up Freedom250, redirected funds to it, and started accepting bribes.
reminds me of Dan Brown's latest book: The Secret of Secrets.
Why?
*book spoilers*
In the book, the Czech police characters frequently complained about the various ways the US ambassador in Prague had too much influence over their investigations, especially of American citizens.
This influence was served as multiple plot devices.
> They were “just doing their job,”
It's always this one exact excuse. They were simply "following orders". The police don't have their own brains capable of thinking.
America: a terrified little country, run by a small, terrified maniac.
"Belgian police willingly comply with U.S. ambassador's request, and Belgian police stopped your reporting"
FTFY
> a foreign ambassador had Belgian police remove us
Belgian police removed us.
FTFY again.
The article is making a good point, especially the hilarious irony of all the private companies, and US being complicit in limiting press freedom. But it also fails to recognize the agency and complicitness of the Belgian authorities as well, and makes them out to be some sort of innocent bystandards -- "Oh look those poor Belgians being bullied by the big bad US!" If they didn't want to remove you, they simply could have not.
Renting a venue for an event usually comes with the right to decide who may attend and who may not. So if the embassy indeed rented the park, then as soon as the ambassador decided the journalists weren't welcome, they were no longer allowed to stay and the Belgian police were correctly doing their duty in making sure they complied and left.
So the article isn't strictly alleging that the ambassador did anything he didn't have the right to do, but uninviting journalists from an event after they ask a question he preferred not to answer and involving the police instead of directly telling them to leave is maybe not the best use of those rights.
> The officers, we later learned, had been told that Samuel was an ”active threat.”
The ambassador does not have the right to lie about someone being an active threat.
> A few days before the event, Samuel had published on his Instagram that ambassador White tacitly threatened an American and Belgian resident after that citizen urged the Zac Brown Band not to perform at the event
No right to threaten either.
> how we had got into the event (that the American embassy invited us to).Eventually, they accepted that we were journalists and that they disagreed with detaining us.
You dont get to invite journalists and then try to get police to detain them either.
Did you actually read the article?
The Belgian police got the information that the person would be an 'active threat' which is just absolutely bizarre and explains the somewhat 'hasty' reaction of the police to quickly remove that person from the event before asking further questions. After they realized their mistake they apologized but of course at that point the journalist wasn't allowed back in.
The ambassador essentially swatted the journalist.
Europe is mighty, independent, strong and decoupling from the US, but also everything bad Europe does is because the big old meanies in the US made them do it against their will
Indeed, I find this story quite interesting (and disturbing) from the Belgian point of view.
Suppose the Belgian government declared the ambassador persona non grata, and sent them on the next plane to Washington. Presumably this would raise their popularity with their own voters, although if Trump noticed he'd throw another temper tantrum. What then?
Keep fucking politics off the front page of HN. This has nothing to do with technology.
Agreed. I'd add to that, as a Belgian: let the US and americans celebrate their 250 years of independence.
That US ambassador is a known asshole. These "journalists" looks like politically slanted assholes too.
And this isn't tech news and shouldn't be here.
Yes, the Brussels state is in desperate need of funds, so they rent out public parks, including the Cinquantenaire, for private events. Of course, during such events the park is not accessible to the public, and there's private security who can hand over anyone to the Brussels police to be escorted out of the park. You know, like you can do in your apartment too.
So if Bill White, the US ambassador, pays to rent out the park for, I think it was 2 weeks, they can have whoever they want removed from this public park. Including any reporters.
They are not allowed to lie about it though.
Lying to the police that the reporters are an "active threat" is criminal.
Presumably the ambassador has diplomatic immunity unfortunately. Really a concept we should get rid of in the day of video calls - there's no longer a strong enough need for foreign diplomats to be in a country to justify putting them above the law.
The police didn't do something outside of their legal powers, that's not what the question is. It's rather unusual for any ambassador to use force to kick out invited reporters from a function.
> So if Bill White, the US ambassador, pays to rent out the park for, I think it was 2 weeks, they can have whoever they want removed from this public park. Including any reporters.
That would be by private security not police though. You aren't generally arrested for annoying an event organiser.
If you get trespassed then wouldn't the police get involved?
Depends on the laws in Belgium (I've no idea what they are)... in the UK for example trespass by itself is not a criminal matter, even if somebody refuses to leave your property... they need to be doing something else.
Just to clarify. The UK police can assist you in ejecting trespassers, whom you have told to leave your house, in order to "prevent a breach of the peace". They won't arrest or charge trespassers unless they have reason to suspect criminal activity.
In this case the Belgian police might have been justified in escorting the journalists off the premises. But I'm not sure what grounds they had to detain and question them.
They should have claimed the reporters were using AC
They weren't trespassing, they were invited!
Aside: why do Americans always talk about trespassing as something that is done to the trespasser? Isn't trespassing the act itself? If I plant myself in your livingroom uninvited, then surely I am trespassing. Why do so many people instead say that I "get trespassed"?
Top of HN
More and more we see the relationship with authoritarianism (police) and tyranny (those in power) out in the open. We see this with the protests in Germany for Gaza. We see this in Britain with freedom of speech taken away from Palestine supporters. And we see this shamelessly occurring from the Trump world.
I used to balk at those who were too worried at growing government power, but this is a wake up call. Protections have to be in place for the vast majority of people, even if it does allow a few criminals to get away.
I'm a little bit less cynical about it; most police still live with the assumption that all of our allies are trustworthy. If the US says there is a credible threat, they rather exercise caution, and remove the threat.
It's just that the US cannot be trusted anymore, and this will probably be the moment that Belgian police will stop taking US intel as fact.
> Protections have to be in place for the vast majority of people...
And how do those protections work when the current administration doesn't even respect the law, and no one will enforce it against them?
In a 6-3 Supreme Court decision..
The power is already curtailed if there's no one to enforce court rulings. An appropriate court says X, the administration just ignores it. How do you get enforcement when law enforcement at every level is willing to answer only to the Executive in Chief?
Quite a leap to bring Gaza and Palestine into a discussion about the US ambassor in Belgium.
It logically supports the claim "More and more we see the relationship with authoritarianism and tyranny out in the open."
It's a shame someone is so sensitive to a subject that it can't even be used as additional support of another argument.
Well most of the discussions could very easily end up making parallels to nazis since we see similar situations all around us over and over, hence Godwin's law. its generally considered a poor performance though and better arguments are expected.
Palestine is so divisive it should have its own 'law' - both sides are abhorable, both sides are shielded by fanatics who don't want to hear any criticism of their side, despite there being plenty of official evidence with photos, videos, wiki articles and so on.
Only if you’re not following along.
The link is police abusing their allowed powers to silence free speech and protest.
> The link is police abusing their allowed powers to silence free speech and protest.
If you'd actually read the post you'd know that its about the the US ambassador being an asshole and the Belgian police doing their job (quickly removing a supposed 'active threat' from an event - because that's the only information they had - they later realized their mistake and that the 'active threat' was just a journalist asking inconvenient questions - but at that point the damage was done and the journalist wasn't let back into the event.
> they later realised their mistake
Here’s the very problem. The police acting immediately to suppress a supposed threat (even “active” ones, whatever that means) which allows them to silence protest or even inconvenient questions to a public servant…
… and we’re splitting hairs here, but it also allows the police to be manipulated by said public servants to get the protest silenced on their behalf.
The police in this case should have quickly realised the individuals were journalists, posed no real threat (no weapons, explosives, chemicals on their persons) and let them go about their business.
> because that's the information they had
That has always been and will always be the excuse for these kind of rights violations by the police. "Oh it's just what we were told, sorry".
And yes, it's worth bringing up e.g. Palestine or climate activists being beaten, arrested etc. in this context, because it's where the limits and tolerances for this kind of behavior are being tested.
Police, at least in Germany, always justify their transgressions with arguments like: "well we had to beat up these demonstrators because they were engaging in criminal behavior", the "criminal behavior" being "chanting a slogan they don't like" or "carrying an umbrella" (I kid you not).
TLDR: If we continue to allow law enforcement to justify their actions with "well that's just what I was told", we are in for a very bad time, because, it turns out, anything can be justified this way.
>>> It was filled with attempts at American cultural exports such as American football (whose players were Belgian), cheerleaders (from Antwerp), Philly Cheesesteaks
Why is this even on hacker news. take this to reddit.
“ A 250th birthday, paid for by private companies.”
People still don’t get it, and some people, specially these ones that believe themselves particularly knowledgeable about politics, will never get it. Still, I’m going to repeat:
Everything government does is paid by privates. All of it comes from the money they continuously take away from “we the people” to fund their lavish lifestyles and do their little ideological stunts. Every single cent.
The writers of the article are just mad that instead of state taking money away from someone, they just funded an event with voluntary donations. It’s how twisted this all frame of mind is.
> The writers of the article are just mad that instead of state taking money away from someone, they just funded an event with voluntary donations.
In decent countries, a "voluntary donation" to state officials is called a bribe.
You seem to have a strange idea of both money and government.
So Belgians, are Julius E. O. Fintelmann and Samuel Dempsey/The European Correspondent legitimate/trustworthy journalists or bloggers looking for clout?
Media Bias Fact Check has them at center-left alignment and high factual credibility, like the Washington Post and Guardian.
The European Correspondent is a legitimate, though young, news organization. I can recommend their newsletter, they write about a nice mix of topics from all across Europe.
Sounds like they had a legitimate question for the ambassador who reacted badly - which is no surprise for someone in this administration.
So a long article about them being kicked out and all they detail about their own actions is that "we asked him about it"? I'm not sure what "tacitly threatened" means, either.
If they want sympathy, they probably should lay out the details of their actions more clearly. This just reads as some juveniles went to an event, tried to rile up an official (while filming the response in hopes of getting a juicy clip), then were surprised when they were kicked out.
That does seem to be a trend in the stories becoming more about the journalists when the expected no comment response is given as if that was the true intent because of course they are not going to comment to hostile questions. In 2026, this is not news. We know what the administration is doing, so becoming the story is not the story they want it to be. They kept repeating "we were invited" as if that means something. While you can be invited, that invitation can be rescinded. At that point, you can't keep saying "we were invited" as a meaningful response to you being asked to leave regardless of why.
To me, it does feel a bit like some journos looking for clout. Kaitlan Collins is the poster child for this type abuse from Trump even if she's not being manhandled by police.
When America is sending their diplomats they're not sending their best!
We used to send people who were concerned with building relationships. These days it sounds like we’re sending people to milk relationships dry.
The way the journalism business is going, open-source investigators and bloggers looking for clout will be the only independent media left.
The American embassy considers them to have sufficient legitimacy to invite them.
Yes, they're a legitimate news organization. They are partially funded by the EU government.
Since when having a government fund your news organization is a good sign for legitimacy
PBS put out a lot of fantastic content. Sesame Street, Nova, Frontline, Nature, Reading Rainbow, News Hour...
Belgian here, never heard of them/the site
Belgian here with some knowledge of the EU-centric media operating out of Brussels.
They are legit but have a tiny audience, this accident made them instantaneously recognizable.
Good for them, we are all fed up with Politico (Axel Springer) + Euractiv (Mediahuis) duopoly.
P.S. This is just IMO, but De Wever should not have gone to the event, he lost a lot of political capital there. He should have given the ground to Theo Franken and Vansina to do their clown thing and instead he should have traveled 100km to the Florennes airbase to assist at BAFS-2026 that happened at the same time.
So American, is Bill White a trustworthy ambassador or a political donor looking for clout?
Does it matter? Should they have been kicked out of an event they were invited to for asking a reasonable question? Why are you asking about a news organization and not an extremely fragile man-baby who can't take a tough question?
Many blogs will omit key facts. For example you could write "I was booted out for asking a question" when in actual fact you'd broken in with some wire cutters and then proceeded to pour champagne over all the soft furnishings.
A credible reporter for a credible outlet writing a credible article won't, whether that's the Washignton Post, the Daily Telegraph, or Le Monde, or if it's BBC, RTL, Al Jazzera.
So it's always worth asking "is this a credible source". It used to be fairly easy, to be a journalist you had to have significant backing from a significant institution.
Given that they were invited to the event "as press" (did you even read the article?) it is safe to assume that they are credible reporters.
Many people on the internet lie.
Trump omits key facts and lies all the time. Also, the SCOTUS yesterday let stand a ruling that he is in fact a rapist.
A natural question to ask – after their very legitimate and important questions have been answered!
(Or are you just trying to derail?)
Do you ask this about all of the alt right slop artists that have been legitimized by the Trump admin? Or only about those who pose adversarial questions to the Trump administration?
Judge for yourself. Why are you asking other people to think for you?