Belgian police used water cannon to disperse an anti-Semitic gathering after authorities on Sunday banned the rally in Brussels that French comedian Dieudonne, convicted for anti-Semitism, was due to address.

Earlier on Sunday, the mayor of the Brussels suburb of Anderlecht, Eric Tomas, issued an order prohibiting the “First European Dissidents’ Congress” scheduled to be held in the area because there was a clear risk of a disturbance to public order.

The event, organised by an extreme-right group, “Stand up Belgians!”, led by Belgian MEP Laurent Louis was to have been addressed by speakers including French comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala but also other Jew-haters. Dieudonne has been repeatedly fined for hate speech towards the Jews in Francewhere local authorities in several towns have banned his shows as a threat to public order.

He is closely associated with the “quenelle”, a gesture that critics have likened to an inverted Nazi salute and said carries anti-Semitic overtones.

The Belgian League against Anti-Semitism had lodged a legal complaint against the Brussels rally, describing it as a “real day of hatred which would be a framework for the worst gathering of anti-Semitic authors, theoreticians and propagandists in our country since World War Two”.

Several hundred people who had planned to attend the meeting gathered in Anderlecht, watched by a line of riot police, while the organisers appealed to Belgium’s top administrative court, which did not immediately rule.

After a standoff lasting several hours, the police moved in with water cannon to disperse the crowd.

(Source: EJP)