Three “youths” in the notorious radical Islamist hotbed municipality of Molenbeek in Brussels were arrested after spitting on police vehicle door handles in an effort to spread the Chinese coronavirus.
The three individuals arrested were members of the so-called “White Vests”. The group wear white vests while supposedly trying to raise awareness among the youths of Molenbeek about the dangers of coronavirus, advising people to abide by social distancing rules, wash their hands, and engage in other helpful actions such as redistributing food.
A police source told Flemish newspaper Het Nieuwsblad on Wednesday that the three arrested White Vests were spitting on the police vehicles hoping “that they themselves were infected with corona and that they, in turn, could make police officers sick”.
The incident is not the first to discredit the work of the White Vests group, as they are also under investigation for allegedly holding a party in contravention of the Belgian coronavirus lockdown measures currently in place.
Spitting attacks have been seen in multiple countries since the start of the coronavirus outbreak in Europe, leading to arrests and imprisonment in some cases.
In France, a woman was handed a prison term of seven months after she spat at police officers while calling them “dirty whites” and saying: “I hope you will all die of Covid.”
She also remarked “I have the coronavirus, you’re all going to die” as she was being detained.
A month later in the city of Montauban, a 39-year-old homeless migration-background man was sentenced to two years in prison after robbing other homeless people at knifepoint and later spitting on police while telling them he had tested positive for coronavirus.
Police in Vienna, Austria, were also attacked last month, with three spitting attacks taking place in a single day in the city. One of the attackers was later confirmed to be infected with coronavirus.
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