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A hotel was vandalized in Brussels where MCC Brussels was planning on holding an event. The Hungarian pro-government think-tank’s Brussels branch released a press statement on the matter, stressing that they will not be intimidated or silenced.
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Stanhope Hotel in Brussels was vandalized with eggs thrown by a group styling themselves as ‘antifascist,’ MCC Brussels reported. Their target was a lawful, peaceful, and open intellectual event hosted by MCC Brussels. “This latest truly pathetic act of cowardice and attempted intimidation marks a troubling moment for democracy in the heart of Europe. They are seeking to frighten the staff of venues into banning the holding of meetings,” the institution stated.
They emphasized that the conference will go ahead, though at a different venue, stressing that
they will not bow to “mobs masquerading as defenders of ‘kindness’ while using the tactics of authoritarianism to silence those they disagree with.
The group’s actions, masked in righteous slogans, reek of the very fascism they claim to oppose.” The institution said that what happened was not a protest but a threat, adding that it was not only aimed at them but anyone who challenges “the militant orthodoxy of these self-appointed arbiters of acceptable thought.”
Attempted cancellation of our event
MCC Brussels condemns cowardly attack on free speech
We will not be silenced by these fake anti-fascists
In the early hours of Tuesday morning, the Stanhope Hotel in Brussels was vandalized with eggs thrown by a group styling… pic.twitter.com/rv0jwuux3f
— MCC Brussels (@MCC_Brussels) May 13, 2025
MCC Brussels warned that Europe is entering a dangerous era where reasoned debate is drowned out by shrieks of intolerance and intimidation. “If this is allowed to continue unchallenged, today they will come for us, tomorrow they will come for anyone who deviates even slightly from their rigid worldview,” they added. They recalled that in the last two and a half years since they came to Brussels, they have created a space for open dialogue, dissident ideas, and democratic debate. The numbers attending their meetings, reading their reports, and watching them online have been growing at a rapid pace. “That is what our critics fear. And that is precisely why we will not retreat,” they stated.
As they pointed out in their statement, the physical attacks on property comes as groups also attempted to silence MCC Brussels by “bogus complaints” to the transparency register for the European Parliament.
Silencing a think tank that dares to challenge the group think of the Brussels bubble has become the obsession of the intolerant establishment and their cowardly masked foot soldiers on the streets,”
they wrote.
Following the events, the institution calls on the leadership of Brussels, EU institutions, and defenders of democracy across the political spectrum to condemn these acts of political violence and intimidation. Free societies are not built by silencing dissent – they are built by debating it, confronting it, and allowing the people to decide, they underlined.
“To those who attacked the Stanhope Hotel and sought to shame businesses into censorship, we say this:
You have exposed yourselves.
You are not antifascists. You behave like the nihilistic thugs that assisted the spread of fascism in Europe in the 1930s.
You are the new censors: intolerant, unelected, and unaccountable.
We will not be silenced.
We will not be intimidated.
And we will not stop,” they concluded.
The Concert Noble conference hall, where the event was supposed to be held, canceled the conference. It was unknown whether the venue had come to such an extreme decision after intimidation by radical anarchists and left-wing groups out of concern over damage to their facilities, or whether its owners yielded to political pressure. The main political actor behind the calls to cancel the National Conservatism conference was Brussels’s socialist mayor Philippe Close, who had reportedly asked the venue to close its doors to the event.
Eventually, the National Conservatism (NatCon) conference saw a level of intimidation and bullying that some of the participants compared to oppression during the communist era. Despite police serving a notice to shut down the conference on the Brussels mayor’s orders, speakers went on to deliver their presentations until the end.
Featured photo via X/MCC Brussels