Updated: Belgian minister resigns over school-strike conspiracy claims

Last edited Tue Feb 5, 2019, 07:10 PM - Edit history (1)

EDIT: article updated at link

Original headline: Belgian minister backtracks on school-strike conspiracy claims

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Source: The Guardian

Belgian minister resigns over school-strike conspiracy claims

Joke Schauvliege falsely claimed state agencies had evidence that children’s climate change protests were a ‘set-up’

Daniel Boffey in Brussels
Tue 5 Feb 2019 18.16 GMT

A Belgian environment minister has been forced to resign after falsely claiming the country’s intelligence services held evidence that children skipping school to demonstrate over climate change were being directed by unnamed powers.

Joke Schauvliege, a minister in Flanders, where the school-strikes movement first emerged, provoked a wave of criticism of the wider political class after suggesting the protests were a “set-up” and “more than spontaneous actions of solidarity”.

“I know who is behind this movement, both of the Sunday demonstrations and the truants,” Schauvliege had told an audience of farmers. “I have also been told that from state security. I can guarantee that I do not see ghosts alone and that climate demonstrations are more than spontaneous actions of solidarity with our climate.”

The comments prompted a rare denial by the Belgian state security services. “We have not reported anything about this to Schauvliege,” they said. “Neither verbally nor in writing.”

The minister initially sought to hold on to her position insisting that she had not lied, but merely gone “too far”. “In recent weeks, I have slept little and I was overwhelmed by frustration, I am a human being and I could be wrong,” she told the Flemish channel Radio 1.

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/feb/05/belgian-environment-minister-joke-schauvliege-claimed-children-climate-protests-a-set-up