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PRESS RELEASE

Brussels, Belgium, Tuesday 13th May 2025

In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Stanhope Hotel in Brussels was vandalized with eggs thrown by a group styling themselves as 'antifascist'. Their target? A lawful, peaceful, and open intellectual event hosted by MCC Brussels. This latest truly pathetic act of cowardice and attempted intimidation marks a troubling moment for democracy in the heart of Europe. They are seeking to frighten the staff of venues into banning the holding of meetings.

Let us be absolutely clear: the MCC Brussels conference will go ahead at an alternative venue. We will not bow to mobs masquerading as defenders of “kindness” while using the tactics of authoritarianism to silence those they disagree with. The group’s actions, masked in righteous slogans, reek of the very fascism they claim to oppose.

What we witnessed was not a protest – it was a threat. And it was not only aimed at MCC Brussels. It was a warning shot to anyone – left, right, or center – who dares to challenge the militant orthodoxy of these self-appointed arbiters of acceptable thought.

Europe is entering a dangerous era where reasoned debate is drowned out by shrieks of intolerance and intimidation. If this is allowed to continue unchallenged, today they will come for us, tomorrow they will come for anyone who deviates even slightly from their rigid worldview.

Since we came to the city two and a half years ago MCC Brussels has created a space for open dialogue, dissident ideas, and democratic debate. The numbers attending our meetings, reading our reports, and watching us online have been growing at a rapid pace as MCC Brussels becomes the leading think tank for freedom. That is what our critics fear. And that is precisely why we will not retreat.

The physical attacks on property comes as groups also attempted to silence MCC Brussels by bogus complaints to the transparency register for the European Parliament. Silencing a think tank that dares to challenge the group think of the Brussels bubble has become the obsession of the intolerant establishment and their cowardly masked foot soldiers on the streets.

We call on the leadership of Brussels, EU institutions, and defenders of democracy across the political spectrum to condemn these acts of political violence and intimidation. Free societies are not built by silencing dissent – they are built by debating it, confronting it, and allowing the people to decide.

To those who attacked the Stanhope Hotel and sought to shame businesses into censorship, we say this:

You have exposed yourselves.
You are not antifascists. You behave like the nihilistic thugs that assisted the spread of fascism in Europe in the 1930s.
You are the new censors: intolerant, unelected, and unaccountable.
We will not be silenced.
We will not be intimidated.
And we will not stop.