Minister of Justice Laurette Onkelinx announced that the Christmas trees and other Christmas decoration at the Law Courts in Brussels will not be removed. She denies the report in La Dernière Heure to that effect. According to the Brussels newspaper all Christmas decorations were to be removed due to "religious reasons".
According to the minister the decorated Christmas trees will always stay and just several other decorations were removed in order to protect the court's visibility and austerity.
La Dernière Heure had written that the decorations must be removed in order not to offend part of the population. "We must stay neutral towards the Muslims."
Justice said the Christmas decorations were a cultural tradition that had nothing to do with religious symbolism.
Source: De Morgen (Dutch)
Update
The original article did not talk of removing Christmas trees or of removing all the decorations in the court. The report in La Dernière Heure says the Christmas decoration were removed from two offices at the entrance of the building because a new boss decided it was offensive to Muslims. When the newspaper went to check, they were met by a wall of silence. The employees were panicked that if they say anything they will be fired.
Sources: La Dernière Heure (French), Nieuw Religieus Peil (Dutch)
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1 comment:
Laurette Onkelinx is just lying as a normal Belgian PS politician. The Christmas decoration that was removed was from 2 offices at the entry. These employees had decoration for years but this year their new boss deciced (alone?) is was not suitable to have it because of moslims coming into the building. There were no other instructions neither any rumors to remove other decorations as Onkelinx wants people to think. These are the facts that were printed in de original article. No more but no less! So it was correct that some had to be removed for that reason and not for the dummy reason Onkelinx pretends.
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