Belgian Court Rules 'Factually Correct' Remarks Can Be Hate Speech

Truth is now criminal hate speech if used to "incite hatred," according to a Belgian court. 

The ruling came in the case of anti-migration activist Dries Van Langenhove, who said in a post on X that, "it is only due to a technicality that I could not immediately be sent to jail —to the judge's frustration."

Van Langenhove's conviction was based on a lecture given in 2024 at Catholic University Leuven, in which he linked mass migration to "crime and a deterioration of our quality of life."

He said, "Every single point I made was 100% the truth and based on scientific evidence."

The judge, however, in his ruling, said, "Even if all of the statements made by Van Langenhove are based on scientific evidence and statistics, it makes no difference to the criminal intent. Van Langenhove is not charged with spreading false information. He is charged with presenting facts in a way that incites hatred against persons on the grounds of one or more of the protected criteria in the Anti-Racism Law."

According to Van Langenhove, the judge and prosecutor did not dispute the facts in his speech but said he created a "hostile atmosphere of us versus them" regarding migrants. 

It is Van Langenhove's second hate speech conviction, and he faces another court case in September. 

He claims there are a dozen active criminal investigations against him for hate speech and has already paid more than 420 thousand euros ($489,000) in legal fees.