About the Event 

On 26 May 2026, the Criminal Court of Leuven convicted civil rights activist Dries Van Langenhove for a lecture on migration and social policy. The court ruled, in its own words: "The defendant is not accused of having spread false information, but of having, through his presentation of the facts, deliberately incited hatred or violence." In other words: whether a statement is true is legally irrelevant. A citizen who states the facts correctly but draws the "wrong" political conclusion can still be prosecuted in Belgium.

What does this mean for political debate, for journalism, and for the freedom of Members of this House to speak openly on the issues that matter to our voters? And what are the implications of the European Commission's effort to anchor hate-speech offences at EU level under Article 83(1) TFEU?

This event will challenge prevailing narratives and open a frank discussion on the criminalisation of opinion in a Europe that still calls itself democratic.

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