Belgian police try to disperse thousands of fake festival goers

Several hundred police officers intervened this Thursday to vacate an esplanade in the Bois de la Cambre park in Brussels in the presence of thousands of people summoned to the fake festival ‘La Boum’ organized as an innocent and that it had not been authorized.

As Efe was able to verify in the park, the police used a drone to warn the attendees that they were facing fines or arrests for congregating in large groups, they organized to evacuate this area of ​​one of the largest parks in the Belgian capital, and he resorted to using a water truck to evacuate some groups reluctant to leave.

Some people threw bottles at police officers and shouted slogans like “Freedom” or “Police, fu-k you.” As Efe was able to verify, many of the evacuees returned to the park by other paths.

The police had announced a reinforcement of their presence this Thursday in the Bois de la Cambre park after this event was called on Facebook, fearing that some of the around 18,000 people who have indicated on the social network that they will attend the festival or of the 51,000 who have expressed interest in the event congregated in the park.

“The activity ‘La Boum’ is false news on April Fools’ Day and, therefore, will not take place. Authorization has not been given for a possible festival and the police will reinforce their presence there”, wrote the Brussels-Ixelles Police on their Twitter profile.

In an interview with the newspaper “La Libre Belgique”, the presumed organizers, masked, presented themselves as representatives of a collective of artists and “freethinkers”, and, using the well-known work of the surrealist painter René Magritte showing a pipe with the motto “this is not a pipe”, they assured that “this is not a festival”, while announcing more initiatives in the future.

However, on Facebook it was indicated that the event will begin this Thursday at 18:00 (16:00 GMT) and will end on Friday at 7:00 (5:00 GMT), although the date was later changed to Same days, but from 2022.

The alleged festival was scheduled just one day after a court of first instance ordered the Belgian federal government to end all exceptional measures taken against the coronavirus pandemic within a maximum period of 30 days as they were considered illegal.

The Executive has already announced that it will appeal the sentence.

To try to identify the organizers of this meeting in the Bois de la Cambre park and another scheduled for this Friday in the Cinquentenaire, the Brussels Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation on Wednesday, since they are still presented as “false” they can lead to real meetings of many people, as has been the case this Thursday.

The night before, the police intervened on the Fiftieth Anniversary park to evict groups of people present in the area shortly before 10 p.m., when the curfew came into force due to the pandemic.

The Brussels Prosecutor’s Office recalled that any person present at an event of this type who does not respect health measures can be prosecuted in accordance with current criminal policy directives.