Call Brussels, also known by its

hashtag A hashtag is a metadata tag operator that is prefaced by the hash symbol, ''#''. On social media, hashtags are used on microblogging and photo-sharing services–especially Twitter and Tumblr–as a form of user-generated tagging that enable ...

#CallBrussels, was an initiative by which people from around the world could dial public telephones in the Belgian capital

Brussels Brussels, officially the Brussels-Capital Region, (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) is a Communities, regions and language areas of Belgium#Regions, region of Belgium comprising #Municipalit ...

, which were then answered by locals. It was initiated in January 2016 by Belgian tourist organisations to counter negative coverage of the city in relation to Islamist militants based within it. The official video of the initiative was pulled from

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

after March 2016's Brussels attacks.

Description

After the

November 2015 Paris attacks A series of coordinated Islamist terrorist attacks took place on Friday, 13 November 2015 in Paris, France, and the city's northern suburb, Saint-Denis. Beginning at 21:16, three suicide bombers struck outside the Stade de France in Saint-De ...

, several people from the Brussels neighbourhood of

Molenbeek ( French, ) or ( Dutch, ), often simply called Molenbeek, is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. Located in the western part of the region, it is bordered by the City of Brussels, from which it is separated ...

were arrested in connection to it, following a four-day lockdown across the capital. The lockdown cost the city €350 million, while tourist numbers in December 2015 fell 20% on the previous December. The Call Brussels website said "At the moment, many tourists still hesitate about coming to visit our magnificent capital. The Level 4 alert and lockdown are still fresh in their memory. Which is a pity because for those who live in Brussels, everything is normal in the city..." Via an Internet connection, members of the public could ring one of three public phones, at the Mont des Arts/Kunstberg, the Place Eugène Flagey/Eugène Flageyplein and in Molenbeek. Calls were answered from 7 to 11 January 2016. After the calls ended, a video was compiled of them by Visit Brussels, including one in which a Belgian man says "Well actually it's the media that's made a whole fuss about it, but nothing is happening." The video was pulled after the 22 March Brussels attacks.

References

{{reflist

External links

Official website
2016 in Belgium Tourism in Brussels