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The European Freedom Convoy – Where’s It At?

February 17, 2022 TLB Staff GOVERNMENT 1

ER Editor: It’s rather difficult to know exactly what’s going on with the European trucker convoy that made landing in Brussels on Monday, Feb. 14th.

We’ll give our punchline here: the situation in Ottawa and Canada generally is certainly serving as a benchmark, a model, for everywhere else. In addition to a commanding advisory team of doctors, lawyers, security experts, etc., they have an unparalleled level of organization and unity. It’s hardly surprising that so much rests on the Ottawa situation.

We’re doing a short review of what we know so far via tweeted videos, as well as bits and pieces from media reports we can actually find. Please note that we take all MSM reporting, as well as RT’s, with a pinch of salt, especially when it comes to statistics and interpretation of events.

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Saturday’s planned demonstrations by motorists in Paris, as well as the normal Saturday protests against Covid government tyranny, must have left the Belgian authorities mightily scared and prepared, to the point of banning such a demonstration in Brussels ahead of time, as well as closing select autoroutes (freeways).

This from RT France’s David Khalifa on Sunday, the 13th:

Brussels is preparing for the arrival of many Freedom Convoys from several European countries. As a large rally is planned for February 14, trucks of police and gendarmes as well as water cannons have been deployed in several places in the city. According to the police, some 1,300 vehicles participating in the convoys made a stopover near Lille on February 13 before heading to Brussels.

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David Khalifa also reported that the participants in the Freedom Convoy had voluntarily dispersed by arriving in a “fragmented” manner at the Belgian border, in order “not to draw attention to themselves. In response, the Belgian police were ordered to carry out identity checks at the freeway service areas on the border with France.

From Monday, the 14th we get this from RT:

The Freedom Convoy is heading for Brussels, the Belgian capital, home to the main institutions of the European Union. About thirty vehicles were filtered out, and the Belgian police proposed to the demonstrators a route on foot into the city.

Belgian authorities have blocked about 30 vehicles that were about to converge on Brussels as part of the Freedom Convoys of opponents of anti-Covid restrictions, announced Brussels Mayor Philippe Close on February 14. The demonstration, inspired by truckers’ convoys in Canada, was banned by authorities in Belgium.

After the weekend rallies in France, Belgian police were deployed on several highways to filter access to the capital. The police are mobilized in the Belgian capital. Armored vehicles and barricades made of barbed wire have been deployed in the city.

From Politico.eu on the 13th (severe MSM warning):

They came with grand plans to rattle the seat of the European Union, angry about COVID restrictions. But the “European freedom convoy” arrived in Brussels Monday scattered and confused, with occasional bark, yet little bite. (ER: interpretation alert)

For the moment, the convoy had run low on gas.

On the main roads into Brussels, police diverted vans, campers, buses and cars to a sanctioned protest area — a 10,000-spot parking lot barely within the city limits. The scene was still and sparse, a far cry from the paralyzed bridges and police clashes that have metastasized across the globe in recent weeks as a trucker protest in Canada spread through the U.S., Australia and Europe.

Within the city, protesters on foot popped up in several places as conflicting messages swirled around social media over where to head. At the original protest spot, the Parc du Cinquantenaire just east of the EU institutions, fewer than 100 people had assembled by midday, chatting in small clusters. Elsewhere, helmeted police in riot gear occasionally outnumbered the protesters. In total, the police said, “several hundred demonstrators” showed up. (ER: We should strongly doubt official numbers.)

Still, there were the occasional flare-ups. Some tear gas was deployed in areas where protesters were blocked, and police said they made about 30 arrests for disturbing the peace or for carrying a prohibited weapon. Rumors also circulated late in the day of possible Brussels gatherings on Tuesday, with some people pledging to take advantage of a planned police strike that has since been delayed.

But for the most part, the initial push was more of a nudge. Shortly after 4 p.m., the police lifted the traffic controls around the Belgian capital. Around the same time within the capital, people started dispersing. One protester was overheard suggesting a drink at one of the sidewalk terraces clustered around Place du Luxembourg, nestled in the heart of the EU district.

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After arriving at a parking lot in Waterloo, just outside Brussels, Crystal said police in unmarked vehicles had intercepted her group and escorted the vehicles to the authorized location. The police, she added, took photos of the vehicles’ license plates. 

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Brussels authorities last week had tried to get out ahead of the protesters, preemptively banning Monday’s demonstration after seeing the activists ensnarl other cities. Law enforcement also prohibited some vehicles from entering the city until Tuesday, according to local media reports.

But on social media and encrypted messaging services — where the majority of the planning for February 14’s convoy has taken place — online supporters urged people to ignore the official warnings to stay away from Brussels. Instead, they called on people to take to the streets to voice their anger about alleged government overreach via coronavirus restrictions like nationwide lockdowns and vaccine mandates.

After the crowds didn’t manifest, some protesters wondered out loud whether the contradictory messaging was part of a “psychological war” to divide the group. They held out hope that more people would join in the coming days, perhaps from the Netherlands. Most of the protesters in Brussels Monday appeared to be French speakers, with many of them coming from France, not Belgium.

In group chats, some convoy members banked on a possible police strike slated for Tuesday making it easier for them to coalesce. But the police union said Monday there would be no strike the following day, and that it would reassess its plans on Thursday.

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France Soir (ER: reliable site) gives us some additional tidbits from a report it put out on Monday:

He (ER: socialist mayor of Brussels) noted that in France, the movement had so far proven to be ” smaller than the French authorities feared “ and essentially composed of individuals in their personal vehicles, and not trucks as in Canada. “ I think that there are few Belgian or European companies which have authorized their employees to come and block the capital with the company truck ”, he estimated.

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The Brussels police announced on the morning of February 14 the closure of the E40 motorway in the Leuven-Brussels direction. This is a major route taken in particular from Germany and eastern Belgium. On February 13, in a parking lot on the outskirts of Lille near the Belgian border, the French police had identified around 1,300 vehicles.

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On the other hand, fearing a lack of commitment from other European countries, aware of the bans in force in Belgium, and faced with the risk of “French-style” repression, part of the “Convoy France” group finally proposed a second option on Telegram: leave Lille to reach Strasbourg, seat of the European Parliament. According to their agenda, the deputies will be there this week, and the press release from “Convoy France” claims to have an appointment with some of them.

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We’re giving our two cents here. There is a telegram channel called ‘Euro Convoy’, which splits into a menu of around 36 groups representing different countries. You then join the group(s) you wish. Which seems a perfectly logical and organized way to do it, yet the input into these groups is necessarily piecemeal with little coherence. Further, RT’s David Khalifa, who reported on Paris on Saturday, hasn’t put anything out since Feb 14 (Monday) at the time of writing. Politico.eu not since Sunday. One is hard pressed to find much of anything anywhere online at the moment (Feb.16).

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TWEETS

ER: The ‘ring’ is the ring road surrounding Brussels and smaller towns south of Brussels. It’s about 75 kms long.

MEANWHILE IN ITALY

Translation: Freedom Convoy: “We are supposed to live free but we are victims of liberticide laws”

Today, Feb. 16

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Published to The Liberty Beacon from EuropeReloaded.com

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1 Comment on The European Freedom Convoy – Where’s It At?

  1. Brilliant reporting again from ER Editor and also on the Austrian update – how anyone can make head or tail of that situation I don’t know, but, ER does a great job in untangling all the conflicting views

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