Paul Beliën (born 1959) is a Flemish Belgian political operative, writer, and former journalist and founder of the right-wing blog The Brussels Journal.
Beliën has a Master of Laws with specialisations in European and social security law from the University of Ghent, and a Ph.D. in international studies from the University of Buckingham. a senior editor at the Hudson Institute, director of the Middle East Forum's Islamist Watch, He is an Americophile, and has been actively opposed to Muslim immigration to Europe as part of the counter-jihad movement. He was one of the nine founders of the party Open Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD) in 1992, but soon left the party due to the party moving towards the left under the influence of Guy Verhofstadt.
From 2000 to 2005, when his wife Alexandra Colen served as a member of parliament, Beliën and Colen published a secessionist quarterly journal together entitled Secessie: Kwartaalblad voor de Studie van Separatisme en Directe Democratie. In 2006 it was one of the few websites that republished the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons,
Beliën also compared Muslims to predators, and called for Belgium to decriminalise the possession of self-defense weapons in an article titled "Give us Weapons!" in 2006. The article caused a media storm, and led him to receive a letter from the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism for "incitement to violence", ordering him to remove the post from the site or face prosecution. The conservative newspaper The Washington Times wrote that free speech was under attack in Belgium for the events.
Beliën served as editor-in-chief of The Brussels Journal from 2005 to 2010.
Later activities (2010–present)
Beliën has later been described as a key ideologue of the Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), having served as a ghostwriter, speech writer, foreign secretary, fundraiser and personal assistant for Geert Wilders since 2010.
Personal life
Beliën is married to Alexandra Colen, a former member of the Belgian Federal Parliament for the political party Vlaams Belang, formerly Vlaams Blok.