The outside of an apartment building in Brussels, Belgium was defaced with multiple swastikas, leading the representative body of the Belgian Jewish community to call on the government to draft a plan to fight rising antisemtiism.
The Coordination Committee of Jewish Organizations in Belgium (CCOJB) released a photo of the vandalized outer wall of the building, which is located in the municipality of Ixelles. The graffiti included seven swastikas spray painted in red, the Brussels Times reported.
According to CCOJB, the municipality quickly removed the antisemitic graffiti.
“It will be cleaned up within the hour. We must not leave the slightest place for these messages of hatred,” acting mayor of Ixelles Romain De Reusme said. “These are not frequent facts in Ixelles but each time is once too many.”
The municipality described the vandalism as an organized event, not a random occurrence.
“It is not the act of mere scatterbrain. The hateful calendar is clearly not trivial. Yesterday we commemorated the end of the Second World War. We read the names of victims who stood up against the Nazis.”
Ixelles has ordered its legal department to look into the matter.
“We are going to study the situation to become a civil party in the event of a complaint or even file a complaint ourselves.” De Reusme said. “There must be surveillance cameras, the perpetrator(s) must be identifiable… it can be complicated. But the message must be relentless in the face of these acts of hate.”
CCOJB President Yves Oschinsky called the vandalism a clear cut case of antisemitism.
“For several weeks, even months, we have seen other cases of this kind in Uccle [a municipality in Brussels] and Ixelles. The [perpetrators] may believe that these municipalities [have large Jewish populations]. In today's case, the date is obviously symbolic. I asked the mayor to check that no resident was specifically targeted.”
The CCOJB noted that police have sent a report to the public prosecutor’s office, and that investigators contacted the building superintendent and its owners. However, no complaints have been filed.
The CCOJB also appealed to the Belgian government to introduce a plan to combat antisemitism, in line with the request from the EU for all member states to do so.