Abou Jahjah stressed the goal of “Arab unity”

BRUSSELS, January 19 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – Two members in the Belgian Senate (Senate de Belgique) submitted last Thursday, January 16, a draft bill to the Flemish Parliament in Belgium, urging the parliament to ban the use of Arabic in the upcoming Belgian parliamentary elections on May 18, 2003, unnamed sources told the London-based Al-Sharq Al-Awsat newspaper.

The sources said the move aims at barring Belgium’s various parties, including the Arab-European League (AEL), from addressing the voters in Arabic, whether through platforms or placards.

The President of the Antwerp-based AEL, Dyab Abou Jahjah, Belgian citizen of Lebanese origin, runs in the elections for the first ever time. It is believed that the AEL’s electoral slate will include some Arab names alongside prominent Belgian figures in different fields.

State statistics put the number of Muslims in Belgium at 300,000, noting that the majority of them hail from Moroccan origin with an estimated 140,000 people. Another 22,000 people have Turkish origins.

Jahjah founded the AEL more than two years ago. It rose to local prominence with a series of demonstrations in support of the Palestinian cause.

In Antwerp, with its large North African minority, he has called for Arabic to be recognized as an “official” language.

The chief of the AEL stressed the goal of “Arab unity” and focused on the need for Arabs in Europe to rally around the twin causes of Palestine and Iraq.      

However, the Belgian government says it will do everything in its power to have the AEL banned.

In November 2002, the Belgian police detained Abou Jahjah for instigating two days of riots, which left a trail of destruction in Antwerp, the immigrant area of Belgium city and a stronghold of the extreme right.  

Tension ran high in the port city of Antwerp after a Belgian shot dead Mohammed Achrak, a 27-year-old Arab.