The decision to implement women-only hours and allow the wearing of a burkini in Brussels’ recently opened public open-air swimming pool is at the base of a political debate in Belgium.
The FLOW swimming pool opened its doors in the Pierre Marchant bridge in the Brussels commune of Anderlecht on Thursday, and has been the subject of discussion for the entire weekend.
On Friday, the leader of the Francophone liberal MR party, Georges-Louis Bouchez, took to Twitter to call the rule allowing a burkini (a swimming suit that allows Muslim women to bathe without revealing their bodies), and the organisation reserving certain hours for women "communitarian madness."
Additionally, a federal MP for the Flemish Christian-democratic CD&V party, Hendrik Bogaert, added fuel to the fire by tweeting that he "cannot believe that there will be separate Islam hours in public swimming pools."
"You should not give in to that. You give a finger, they take an arm," Bogaert said. "Just in case anyone wants separate Islam lanes at the seaside: we are going to walk over them quietly, the beach belongs to everyone." His tweet, as well as Bouchez's, received support from many other members of the Flemish (Open Vld) and Francophone (MR) liberal party, including former leader Gwendolyn Rutten and current leader Egbert Lachaert, who said that "after all the struggles, we do not want to end up in segregation." On Monday morning, however, the CD&V party expressed its disapproval of Bogaert's tweet, saying that the message goes against the respectful way the party wants to communicate. "We are not in favour of separate swimming hours on the basis of belief but that is not the purpose of this separate hour," the party said in a statement to the Belga news agency. "It is really regrettable that such a beautiful initiative from the associative world - an open-air swimming pool for the youth of Brussels, at last - has been hijacked in a polarised debate," it added.Niet te geloven dat er aparte islam-uren komen in de openbare zwembaden.
Je moet daar niet aan toegeven. Geef je een vinger, ze nemen een arm. Voor het geval dat iemand aparte islam-stroken wil aan de kust: we gaan daar rustig doorlopen, het strand is van iedereen.#integratie — Hendrik Bogaert (@hendrikbogaert) July 3, 2021
Related News
- 'Madness': liberals oppose burkinis in Brussels public open-air swimming pool
- Diving into the future of public open-air swimming pools in Brussels
- 'Either a referee or a player': liberals oppose Equality Commissioner with headscarf