Reporter detained at U.S. event in Belgium after questioning official

European Correspondent reporter Samuel Dempsey and his editor were detained at a U.S. government-organized event celebrating America’s 250th birthday in Brussels after questioning the U.S. ambassador to Belgium on June 28, 2026.

The State Department invited the journalists to the Freedom 250 event, held in the city’s largest park and organized by the three U.S. embassies in Brussels. While there, Dempsey and Fintelmann interviewed attendees, including the president of the European Parliament and the European Union’s commissioner for defense.

Dempsey later approached Ambassador Bill White to ask him questions about an email he had sent to American activist and Belgium resident John Hasan Yildiz, who had urged the Zac Brown Band to reconsider performing at the celebration. In the email, which copied both federal and local law enforcement in Belgium and the embassy’s head of security, White suggested he had obtained Yildiz’s personal information and shared it with police.

Even though White had initially agreed to answer questions, he declined to comment and walked away. A member of his entourage motioned for Dempsey to leave in an Instagram video of the interaction.

Twenty minutes later, as the Pledge of Allegiance played and American World War II aircraft flew overhead, about eight Brussels police officers wearing plain clothes surrounded Dempsey and started moving him out of the event.

“They got in my ear and were kind of yelling at me,” Dempsey told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker.

Dempsey, an American citizen, repeatedly told police he was a journalist and asked why they were detaining him. He said officers continued to physically move him and initially became more hostile.

“They did put their hands on me. They did physically move me without my permission,” Dempsey said of the police use of force. “But it did not seem like they were looking to inflict harm.”

The officers also confronted Fintelmann, who had begun filming the encounter. They demanded his identification and started physically removing him from the event. The journalists were detained for about 20 minutes before being escorted out.

While being detained, police questioned the journalists about whether The European Correspondent had a political agenda and how the outlet had gained access to the event, despite being invited by the embassy.

“Jumping straight to, ‘You are being detained and removed,’ that’s not what the law is here at all,” Dempsey said.

Officers told the journalists they had been informed Dempsey posed an active threat and didn’t believe he was a reporter until receiving confirmation from event officials. A spokesperson for Brussels Mayor Philippe Close later confirmed this to The European Correspondent, stating the ambassador did not feel safe with the reporters at the event. The offices of the Brussels mayor and the U.S. Embassy in Belgium did not immediately return Tracker requests for comment.

Dempsey said that characterization unnecessarily escalated the encounter by failing to tell responding officers that he was a reporter.

“They entered a scenario where they didn’t know if I was an active terrorist, if I was an agitator, they had no idea what was going on,” he said in the Instagram video. “They put me physically at risk and them physically at risk if things were to escalate.”

In one email to the outlet after the event, White implied Dempsey was connected to the activist and called him and Fintelmann “losers.” In another, White accused Dempsey of approaching him with a weapon and harassing embassy employees, allegations Dempsey denies. Video of the encounter shows Dempsey holding a cellphone as he approached White.

White also said Dempsey would be barred from future government events. The ambassador went on to incorrectly identify Fintelmann as the activist who had emailed the Zac Brown Band, and claimed the European journalist suffered from “Trump Derangement Syndrome level five.”

Ben Grazda, advocacy manager for Reporters Without Borders, condemned the ambassador’s treatment of the journalists in a statement.

“It is ludicrous that, on the anniversary of America declaring itself free from tyranny, the US Ambassador to Belgium, at his massive party for the occasion, kicked out an American and a European journalist simply for asking questions,” he wrote. “Americans expect their top diplomats to at least respect the nation’s founding values in their official duties. We hope Ambassador White will turn his attention to the matter of the Constitution before he disgraces it again.”