“You are like terrorists“. This sentence, pronounced during the municipal council of Jette on August 27 by the municipal councilor Mr Olivier Corhay, had made his recipient jump, Leila Agic. She had interrupted the liberal during a debate on the installation of the Palestinian flag on the facade the municipal hotel. Olivier Corhay had described this flag like that of a “terrorist movement“. Offequated, the socialist had then spoke before being compared herself to a terrorist. Session incident and departure of the room of all elected officials of the opposition!
Leila Agic had claimed public apology that did not intervene. Today, she files a complaint. As his lawyer Maître Karim Sedad explains, “This direct and free assimilation of an elected official of Bosnian origin, also bearing a first name of Arab origin, to a terrorist, constitutes an offense to Belgian anti-discrimination legislation, but also to the penal code. Despite various calls and repeated to present public excuses, Mr. Corhay maintained his remarks. Worse, he positioned himself as a victim, making the judicial appeal inevitable. The complaint was filed with a Brussels investigating judge.“
We asked Leila Agic three questions.
Madame Agic, why this complaint?
We have been undergoing several years as racialized elected officials on social networks more and more violent, increasingly racist attacks. And see that this kind of discriminatory remarks crosses the door of a municipal council, it is really a red line and one cannot accept that it is crossed. If I file a complaint, it is because when I am called a terrorist to the Municipal Council of Jette, because I simply say that we cannot assimilate the flag of Palestine to a terrorist movement. Let me send me a sentence such as ‘you are like terrorists’, that is to say to the whole population, which is horrified by what is happening today in Gaza, that if they support the victims, it is that they support terrorists. For me, it’s totally unacceptable.
This complaint is still symbolic …
Obviously, I do not have any illusions on this type of procedure and the slowness of the Belgian judicial system. But for me, laying a complaint was to refuse to trivialize what happened. Yes, the political debate can be lively, it can be hard. But never, we should never go into discrimination against our interlocutors. There are red lines not to be crossed and that of discrimination is clearly one. Mr. Corhay has had many opportunities to come back to his words, to apologize. On the contrary, he only assumed and accentuating what he said. The only way for me to react today is to seize justice.
It seems that you also want it in the bourgmestre Claire Vandevivere. For what reasons?
I consider that the fact that the bourgmestre did not react at the time of the municipal council, that it did not take strong acts after the municipal council, that it never contacted me, all this participates in the trivialization of the remarks that were made. The fact that Sven Gatz, regional minister and Open VLD municipal councilor in Jette Vienna to say to the following municipal council: ‘Can we apologize? Yes. Should we apologize? No !’ He adopts the same position as the MR vis-à-vis the genocide in Gaza. Freedom of expression, of course, is a fundamental value in democracy. But you can’t hide behind freedom of expression to say anything and anything. Freedom of expression in Belgium does not make it possible to make hateful, discriminatory or defamatory remarks. And even less when these speeches are the result of elected officials. Speaking must still be accompanied by certain responsibilities.
