Belgium’s ‘far right’ Flemish nationalist party, the Vlaams Blok, is undeniably, a party with some very unsavory elements indeed. It is also a party that has benefited from the tensions caused by mass immigration and Belgium’s continued rule by a political establishment that is as revolting as it is corrupt. Take your pick from a few recent stories, whether it’s the endemic anti-Americanism, the foreign minister’s attempt to play down his country’s genocidal role in the Congo, the arrest of a distinguished investigative journalist or the increasingly troubling suggestions of a massive cover-up of the truth behind the Dutroux pedophile murders, and one is left with the impression that Belgium is a cesspit nation, a state that is rotten to the core. Add a long history of division between Belgium’s French and Flemish-speakers to an already poisonous political mix, and it should be no surprise that the VB has been gaining traction. In last year’s parliamentary elections it won nearly 18 percent of the vote in Flanders and in 2000, 33 percent of voters supported it in municipal polls in Antwerp, the region’s largest city.

That, clearly, is not acceptable to Belgium’s ruling class. A court has now found that some of the VB’s propaganda has broken the country’s anti-racism law. The party has been fined and, critically, will lose the state support to which most political parties are entitled. Now, and I should stress this, I don’t know what all the offending materials said, and political parties, of course, should not be above the law. Nevertheless, it’s difficult to read this story without the suspicion that the courts are being used to achieve that which free and open debate could not.

And that’s not a pretty thought.

Stephen Pollard has more.