The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
We went there to cover it. We put questions to senior politicians, including the US ambassador to Belgium, Bill White. After attempting to ask a question, we were pulled out of the event by police, had our IDs taken and were then questioned – before the embassy instructed the police to escort us off the grounds entirely. The officers, we later learned, had been told that Samuel was an “active threat.”
This is what happened.
A 250th birthday, paid for by private companies.
Under Donald Trump, the US is throwing parties to mark the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence. But these are not, as you might think, official, Congress-approved parties, but organised by a private company called Freedom 250.
The Brussels edition is the only one of its kind in Europe. Dozens of European and American companies contributed around €3 million to it. The three American embassies in Brussels – to Belgium, the EU, and NATO – rented out Parc du Cinquantenaire.
It was filled with attempts at American cultural exports such as American football (whose players were Belgian), cheerleaders (from Antwerp), Philly Cheesesteaks (also made by Belgians), Mac and Cheese, and Budweiser (owned by a Belgian company).
And the audience? Several thousand, mainly officials working in embassies and institutions, as well as sponsors and big companies. Either way: less than the 8,000+ that the embassy was hoping to get.
A few days before the event, Samuel had published on his Instagram that ambassador White tacitly threatened an American and Belgian resident after that citizen urged the American country music band Zac Brown Band not to perform at the event, a story he is still reporting and will follow up in more detail soon.
So when we reached the ambassador on Sunday evening, we asked him about it and filmed the exchange. A person who we assume was his press officer told us we were not allowed to ask any questions, and that was that.
About 20 minutes later, roughly eight Belgian police officers in plain clothes surrounded us and pulled us out of the event. None of them wore visible identification, only flashing a badge for a short enough time not to register. When we first asked who they were, they physically pushed us, said “we are police,” and ordered us to come with them immediately.
For the next 15 minutes or so, the officers confiscated our IDs and questioned us. They asked whether The European Correspondent had a political leaning, whether we had an agenda, and how we had got into the event (that the American embassy invited us to).
Eventually, they accepted that we were journalists and that they disagreed with detaining us. They were “just doing their job,” they told us. It became clear that the officers had been given no real information about who we were, only that he was an “active threat” (which could mean a physical threat), and needed to be detained, identified, and removed. That's probably why the detention was aggressive and conducted without discussion.
Even after the officers recognised their mistake, the embassy told them we were no longer permitted inside, and they escorted us out – out of an event we had been invited to attend as press.
Open questions
Much about the evening is still unclear.
It is unclear who exactly paid how much for the party. It is unclear whether the police presence that removed us was paid for by the American organisers or by Belgian taxpayers. It is unclear how much the embassy paid for renting the park.
And it is unclear who has compensated the shops and restaurants around the Cinquantenaire that were forced to close for days because of the security operation around the event.
Being asked for clarification about the detention the day after, Bill White confused us with the writer of the letter to the Zac Brown Band and said that we were both “losers”, refusing to give us any explanation.
We have reached out to Belgian authorities for clarification and European politicians present at the event for comment.