Belgium obtained 218 terrorist and extremist threats final 12 months, in line with the annual evaluation of the nation’s coordinating physique for menace evaluation (OCAM), printed Thursday.
In line with the report, in 2021 the general menace degree remained on common at medium all year long. Simply over 50 % of threats had been rated as low-level, and one-third as medium-level.
One was deemed very critical and imminent. It associated to an armed far-right extremist former navy man, Jürgen Conings, who in Might and June of final 12 months, made threats towards Belgian politicians and towards virologist Marc Van Ranst.
OCAM operates underneath the Ministries of Justice and the Inside, and works alongside Belgium’s Nationwide Disaster Heart and the Public Prosecutor’s Workplace.
In line with the report, one-third of the threats had been primarily based on jihadist ideology, and one in 10 had been right-wing extremist threats.
Social networks and textual content messaging purposes stay the popular technique of issuing threats.
Nearly all of menace experiences involved a “lone actor” – somebody having no structural hyperlink with terrorist or extremist teams.
It’s the first time OCAM has disclosed the variety of threats reported in Belgium in a 12 months. A spokesperson mentioned the variety of experiences has been secure on common over the past three years.
