For months, the international Palestinian prisoner solidarity network Samidoun had been in the Belgian authorities' crosshairs. In the end, the government chose to act over the summer. Its goal: to neutralize the group, which, according to Bart De Wever, the Belgian prime minister, from the NVA Flemish nationalist party, "glorifies terrorist organizations and atrocities."

Yet the Belgian authorities had few legal tools at their disposal to do so. De Wever himself acknowledged that this type of organization acted "without committing criminal offenses." On July 25, Interior Minister Bernard Quintin, a liberal from the Mouvement Réformateur (MR, center-right), therefore presented a draft bill at a cabinet meeting, aimed at dissolving "organizations or groups of extremists who threaten national security or the rule of law."

On August 6, the newspaper Le Soir revealed that the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons, to which the matter had been referred by the previous junior asylum and migration minister, Nicole de Moor, had revoked the Palestinian refugee status granted to Samidoun's Europe coordinator, Mohammed Khatib. He had made conciliatory remarks about Hamas, such as recently describing them as worthy of "respect." These were cited as evidence against him, although he is primarily known for being close to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist group. Samidoun is classified as a "terrorist entity" in Canada and the United States, and has been banned in Germany. A video in which Khatib said he "celebrates" the October 7 attacks, which he described as an "act of resistance," has come under particular scrutiny.

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