Paul Beliën

Paul Belien
(courtesy of Luc van Braekel)

Dr. Paul Belien (b. 1959) is a Flemish journalist and editor of the conservative-libertarian blog The Brussels Journal.

Belien is both known as both a pro-American and a prolific writer and author. Belien has written in several newspapers such as The Wall Street Journal, The Independent, 't Pallieterke, Gazet van Antwerpen, Trends or The American Conservative. He is an advocate of Flemish independence, free trade and supports the Pro-Life movement, which is opposed to abortion. Belien strongly opposes immigration into Europe by Islamic fundamentalists. He was co-founder of the Centre for the New Europe (CNE), a thinktank based in Brussels, and was editor of the conservative magazine Nucleus.

Belien has also published a book about Belgium and the "Belgianisation" of Europe entitled A Throne in Brussels.

Belien is married to Dr. Alexandra Colen, a member of Belgian Federal Parliament for the party Vlaams Belang. They have homeschooled all of their of children.

Gazet van Antwerpen firing

Belien was editor at the foreign desk of the Gazet van Antwerpen, until he got fired in April 1990. Belien had received information in October 1989, that the Belgian King, Baudouin, would not sign the new abortion law. However, editor in chief of the Gazet van Antwerpen, Lou De Clerck, found this information to be too sensitive to be published. Belien published this information in the Wall Street Journal of November 1, 1989, though, and later in NRC Handelsblad. In reaction to this, De Clerck refused to let Belien write in foreign newspapers, mentioning his relationship to the Gazet van Antwerpen. An op-ed of Belien, for the NRC Handelsblad, of April 6, 1990, mentioned that Belien was working "for a newspaper in Antwerp, which name he could not mention." A couple of days later Belien was fired. Jos Huypens, deputy editor of the Gazet, said that the cause of Belien's firing was a "conflict that was dragging on for years." Shortly later, the Wall Street Journal published another Belien piece, detailing the connections between political parties and the media in Belgium.

Leo De Haes, a former journalist at Humo, alleged that Belien was fired in order to rid the Gazet from "Vlaams Blok elemenents."

Opinions

In an article (June 23, 2004) for the business newspaper De Tijd Belien reflected on current Belgian VLD prime-minister Guy Verhofstadt, saying that Verhofstadt brought Flemish Liberalism to the brink of the abyss. Belien stated that he saw in Verhofstadt a transformation from adoring the economic liberalism of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, and the laureling of Ludwig Erhard of Verhofstadt in Belien's magazine Nucleus in 1990, to a Third Way position taken by Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, with Verhofstadt ultimately taking a Old Europe stance with Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder in 2003. According to Belien, this last 'change of winds' by Verhofstadt prevented him to become the next EU President. Furthermore, Belien thinks that the vacuum left by Verhofstadt to make the VLD in a broad people's party has been filled by the Vlaams Belang.

In May 2006, Belien removed a post "Geef ons Wapens!" (Give us Weapons!) from his blog, The Brussels Journal, after receiving a letter from the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism, an agency that falls under the responsibility of Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and directed by Jozef de Witte, asking him to remove the text, because, they claim, it violates the Belgian law of 1981 on racism and xenophobia. The text, originally in Dutch, was written in the context of the Joe Van Holsbeeck murder, which was originally thought to have been perpetrated by people of North African decent (but later found to be perpetrated by Polish immigrants of Gypsy (Sinti) decent). Paul Belien denied all allegations of the Centre, but did remove the text. A translation of an extract from the text follows:

The predators have teeth and claws. The predators have knives. Starting when they're small, they learn at their yearly offerings how to cut the throats of warm-blooded livestock. We get sick at the sight of blood, but they don't. They're trained and they're armed. We can't even carry pepperspray in our pockets. They have switchblades and butchers knives and they know how to use them.

A month later, Paul Belien re-iterated his stanch from that article, after the death of Guido Demoor in an Antwerp bus, saying:

The Belgian state is no longer able to guarantee the security of its citizens. [...] Belgians do not have a constitutional or legal right to bear arms, not even purely defensive arms such as peppersprays. With the police and the government failing to protect law-abiding citizens the latter are, however, totally unprotected. Saturday’s murder has shocked bus drivers and train conductors, but they stress that they are not in the least surprised. Violence on public transport has become a fact of life.

Publications

• Belien, Paul, Abortus, het grote taboe, Roularta Books, Zellik, 1992 (ISBN 90-5466-015-5)
• Belien, Paul, A throne in Brussels : Britain, the Saxe-Coburgs and the Belgianization of Europe, Imprint Academic, Charlotteville (VA), 2005 (ISBN 1-84540-033-X)

See also

• Property and Freedom Society

External links

• The Brussels Journal (English and Dutch)
• Secessie (Dutch)
• The Belgian State versus Home Schooling: The persecution of Dr. Alexandra Colen and Dr. Paul Belien
• Message for the Belgian Government National Review's Stanley Kurtz on the Belgian government's harassment of The Brussels Journal.
• Belgian beef Washington Times op-ed about Paul Belien and free speech in Belgium.