Automatic revocation of terrorists’ nationality

Among other things, N-VA is looking to see convicted terrorists automatically lose their Belgian nationality. “If you still don’t lose your right to Belgian nationality carrying out such crimes - or even by being complicit in them or just having the intent to carry them out - when exactly should you?”, the party has to ask. The N-VA submitted a bill to this end back in the summer of last year. It now wants to get it on the agenda as quickly as possible for discussion in the competent Parliamentary Committee.

“Anyone guilty of a crime against the State is in our opinion no longer entitled to benefit from the advantages of state citizenship,” the N-VA says. “With our proposal, a judge who convicts a person for terrorism would simultaneously also strip him or her of Belgian citizenship.” In that case, Sharia4Belgium founder Fouad Belkacem, the country’s best-known Jihadi recruiter, would have lost his Belgian citizenship back in 2015 when he was convicted.

The present legislation does not pass muster

Current legislation already enables a judge to strip a person convicted of terrorism of his or her Belgian nationality. However, this is only possible for Belgians who, for example, did not acquire Belgian nationality through their parents, and only at the request of the public prosecutor’s office and then only if the person was sentenced to at least five years imprisonment without parole. On top of all that the judge still has the prerogative of deciding whether or not to take the measure.

“Participating in terrorism, whether as a perpetrator or as an accomplice, is a purposeful attack on our democratic constitutional state. No one is accidentally convicted of terrorism,” the N-VA concludes.