Belgians post cat photos in response to terror threat

A POLICE request that Brussels residents maintained “radio silence on” social media on Sunday night as the raids took place was answered by people instead choosing to post pictures of their cats.

#BrusselsLockdown. Picture: Patrick de Francquen/Twitter

One Twitter user, Jogchum Vrielink, posted two identical pictures of his cat curled up, asleep, with the caption: “Cat behavior before lockdown vs cat behavior during lockdown”.

Scottish business networking organisation Scotland Europa, based in Brussels, posted a picture of a kitten inside a sporran.

The caption read: “Scotland Europa is open for business today, and this is our feline fighter #BrusselsLockdown”.

The Federal Police yesterday morning put out a tweet with a picture of a cat bowl filled with food: “For cats who have helped us yesterday...here you go!”

MSP Roseanna Cunningham, secretary for Fair Work, Skills and Training, also joined in the tweets.

She wrote: “I *might* be overdoing the RTs on this #BrusselsLockdown thing, but it’s a hoot & the best way to respond to a threatening situation.”

It is thought the trend was started by a Dutch cameraman Hugo Janssen, who tweeted: “Instead of tweets about police activity in Brussels, here’s a picture of our cat Mozart.”