A discrimination complaint against Dutch protest singer Sophie Straat has been dismissed by Belgium's equality body, after complaints about her "white men to step to the back" comments during a performance at the Gentse Feesten on Monday.
Before her final song, the artist instructed women, queer people, and people of colour to move forward in the crowd. "There is no time for nuance," Straat announced. "We've been overdue for nuance for a long time. All the white men backwards, white men backwards!"
In what appears to be a provocative part of her act, this statement was repeated at a Dutch festival, Best Kept Secret. This caused backlash across Dutch talk shows and social media platforms, with Straat subsequently receiving numerous death threats, which she reported to the police.
On Thursday, Belgian interfederal equal opportunities centre Unia was first to register the fallout after the Gentse Feesten. Following a wave of criticism on social media towards the singer, the organisation received over 300 reports from attendees and observers alleging discrimination.
Many of them argued Straat's statement was racist and sexist, asking rhetorically if the move would be acceptable given the roles were reversed and people of colour were asked to move back instead.
Yet Unia evaluates all potential civil rights violations against Belgian anti-discrimination laws. The agency considers the specific remarks alongside the broader environment, weighing artistic freedom heavily in its final assessments.
On Thursday, it announced that it had ruled the incident did not meet the legal threshold for discrimination. Unia ruled that the incident falls under "artistic freedom", stating that freedom of speech extends significantly within artistic contexts. Dutch equality institution Discriminatie.nl concluded the same.
Sophie Straat has also doubled down on her calls. Online, she lamented the lack of support from the media and broader music scene.
"I lack public solidarity, especially in the music sector," she wrote on Instagram. In the post, she called the Netherlands a "neo-fascist country" and asked, "Where are the left media? Where are the statements from big festivals?”
In December, Straat was praised for her political and socially conscious messages in her music by Amnesty International, having also been described by national media as a key figurehead for a socially conscious generation of young adults.
