alt Hacker NewsThe US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
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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.
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 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
So Belgians, are Julius E. O. Fintelmann and Samuel Dempsey/The European Correspondent legitimate/trustworthy journalists or bloggers looking for clout?
reminds me of Dan Brown's latest book: The Secret of Secrets.
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.
"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.
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Keep fucking politics off the front page of HN. This has nothing to do with technology.
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.
>>> 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.
Top of HN
“ 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.
America: a terrified little country, run by a small, terrified maniac.
> 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.
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.