Pro-Palestine Activist Briefly Arrested in Belgium After Taking Part in Protest

Brussels (Quds News Network)- A Palestinian activist was arrested in Belgium after attending a daily protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, with the organization he works for describing the arrest as “a form of state harassment.”

Mohammed Khatib, the 35-year-old European coordinator for Samidoun, a global Palestinian prisoner solidarity network, was arrested on April 21 after attending a daily protest demanding an end to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, accoridng to Al Jazeera.

Every evening, dozens of pro-Palestine protesters, some wearing keffiyehs, gather on the steps of the former stock exchange in Brussels to drape a Palestine flag down the steps and chant slogans of solidarity in English, Arabic and French.

A police presence is typically expected, but Khatib grew uneasy when he saw an officer taking photos of him. He left the area around 7:30pm (17:30 GMT) and was soon stopped nearby by local police for what he described as a “spontaneous” ID check.

He was arrested and transported in a police van to a central station. Around 30 supporters gathered outside, chanting “Free our comrade!” until riot police dispersed them around 10pm (20:00 GMT).

Khatib was later moved to another station, questioned without legal representation, and released at approximately 5am (03:00 GMT).

Khatib said he spent hours waiting in a cell before being asked for a few minutes about an incident in April 2024 during which he was attacked with a knife. There was also a brief trip to the hospital for nonurgent medication.

“They were doing anything they could to keep me,” Khatib told Al Jazeera.

The Brussels Public Prosecutor’s Office told Al Jazeera: “Mohammed Khatib was arrested as part of an investigation into events that took place in April 2024. He was released after questioning.”

Samidoun’s stance on Israel-Palestine has led to Khatib being designated as a “serious” security threat by the Coordination Unit for Threat Analysis (CUTA), an independent body that reports to Belgium’s justice and interior ministries.

Khatib said officers on April 21 justified the arrest initially with the CUTA designation.

It marked the second time he has been arrested. In October 2023, he was arrested at a demonstration after refusing to stop waving a Palestine flag.

The latest detention was “nothing in terms of what we are facing”, he said, referring to efforts in some Western nations to curtail the pro-Palestine movement.

Samidoun called the arrest “a form of state harassment targeting a prominent leader, not only of Samidoun, but of the growing movement against the ongoing genocide in occupied Palestine”.

“It’s hard not to see it in that light,” refugee and immigration lawyer Benoit Dhondt told Al Jazeera. “A lot of people are living in a state of schizophrenia because of how invisible the genocide in Gaza is being made in Europe.”

Meanwhile, “disproportionate policing of the pro-Palestine movement makes it very difficult to understand what is actually happening,” he said.

On October 15, then-State Secretary for Migration and Asylum Nicole De Moor, a Christian Democrat, announced a procedure to strip Khatib, who she called a “hate preacher”, of asylum.

“Even if someone has already been recognised as a refugee but that person turns out to be an extremist, recognition can be withdrawn,” she stated.

On the same day, the United States and Canada blacklisted Samidoun, deeming it a “sham charity” and accusing it of raising funds for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a designated “terrorist” organisation. Samidoun denied the allegation.

Khatib has also been banned from entering Switzerland for 10 years, which occurs only when an individual poses what is considered a “concrete” threat to national security, according to a Swiss government spokesperson. He was not permitted to enter the Netherlands for a university talk in October.

According to a CUTA spokesperson, Samidoun is classified as an “extremist” organisation, which “is not a criminal offence”.

“We are more interested in keeping an eye on the leadership, the members, what they do and say, how they disrupt public order and what group they are potentially targeting,” the spokesperson said.

“The goal of this intimidation is to silence the movement, to make an example of us and say, ‘If you do the same, this is your future’. We will fight this,” Khatib said.