A joke spread on social media by April 1 led to riots and clashes with police in the Bois de la Cambre park in the south of Brussels. This was announced on Thursday by the TV company VRT NWS.
At the beginning of March, information about the La Boum festival in the park was spread on social networks, to which 200 DJs from all over Europe were invited. Participation in the festival is free, and for the convenience of people, free buses are organized from Paris, London and Amsterdam.
At the same time, the messages contained a number of joke indications: the date of the “festival” at the height of the quarantine was April 1, the names of the DJs were similar to the names of Belgian politicians and ministers. So, the list included a certain Alexander 2-Kraux – an allusion to the name of Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo.
Already at the end of March, a confession about a joke was published on the pages of the “organizers of the festival”. However, this did not help, and several thousand people gathered in the park. Without waiting for the festival, young people began to play music and dance on their own.
The police called into the megaphone those who had gathered to disperse and pointed to the malicious violation of quarantine measures. In response, the “festival participants” threw bottles at law enforcement officers.
Mounted police arrived at the scene, a water cannon was used against those gathered. Law enforcement officers also detained several people, their total number is not yet known.
Ambulances are on duty at the site. At least one police officer was injured.
On March 7, it was reported that dozens of sex workers demonstrated in Brussels to draw the attention of the authorities to their financial problems due to a temporary ban on activities amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Now in Belgium, quarantine continues – optional shops and schools are closed. According to the Worldometer portal, to date, more than 882 thousand cases of coronavirus infection have been registered in the state. 23 thousand people died, 57.1 thousand recovered.