Mohammed Khatib, the European coordinator of the Samidoun network, was detained by police after attending a daily protest against the Gaza genocide in central Brussels on Monday, April 21. While he has since been released, activists in Belgium and across Europe warn that this latest instance of police repression reflects a broader escalation of attacks on Palestine solidarity movements in the region.
This is not the first time Khatib has been targeted by authorities. Since last year, he has faced efforts to revoke his asylum in Belgium, as well as entry bans to Switzerland and the Netherlands, according to a statement by Samidoun. Throughout this process, various European authorities have designated both the network and Khatib as potential security or even terrorist threats, pursuing various legal and administrative options to curtail their work.
However, the trend is not confined to attacks on Samidoun or Belgium. Palestine solidarity activists in France, Germany, and other countries have also faced smear campaigns and police intimidation, among other things. Recently, four activists in Germany have been threatened with deportation over their campaigning, despite not being convicted for any crime. Similar developments are expected to worsen with the continued rise of the far right across Europe.
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In Belgium, this shift coincided, in part, with the Arizona government taking office, whose policy agenda includes sweeping attacks on civil liberties, including the right to protest. During this period, Palestinian youth activists have reported increasingly harsh treatment by police, including racist slurs and verbal abuse by officials. Other activists were taken to immigration detention and threatened with deportation before ultimately being released.
Samidoun also pointed out that since the Arizona coalition came to power, repression against the Palestinian solidarity movement has intensified, mirroring trends seen in the United States since the inauguration of Donald Trump’s second administration. The group warned that “Belgian police have taken an increasingly aggressive and repressive approach to the Palestine liberation movement, as well as to Arab, Black, and other oppressed communities, who have long suffered from police violence and systematic racism.”
The Arizona government’s program explicitly names Samidoun as a target for future policy action, stating that it will follow the example of neighboring countries by pursuing a full ban on the network and similar organizations “because of their links with terrorism or the spread of antisemitism in our country” – allegations which remain uncorroborated.
Campaigns to continue in face of repression
If these government plans move forward, activists warn, there will be no way to predict who may be targeted next, making resistance and mass mobilization more urgent than ever. In response, Samidoun and other networks across Europe have called for broader participation in upcoming solidarity actions, including a day of protest on April 25 outside US and Israeli embassies, as well as commemorations of the Nakba in May.
“Together, when we mobilize, unite, and organize to defend each other, we can confront criminalization and repression,” the network wrote. “We can build and strengthen our movement for the defeat of Zionist genocide, in solidarity with the Palestinian people and their heroic Resistance, and for the liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea,” the network wrote.
