The conference, featuring several far-right figureheads like Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, French Reconquete! leader Eric Zemmour and former UK MEP Nigel Farage, was already forced to move locations twice.

Over the weekend first the Concert Noble venue and then the Sofitel Hotel pulled out of hosting, after public pressure from activist groups and interventions by the mayors of Brussels City and Etterbeek.

The conference announced the location of the third venue, the Claridge in St Josse, early on Tuesday morning, just shortly before its scheduled start. But early afternoon videos emerged of police entering the premises to end the event, though it is unclear whether the attendees will be forced to leave.

The St-Josse mayor, despite himself having been excluded from the Brussels socialist party in 2020 for meeting with the Turkish far-right, immediately ordered neighbourhood police to end the conference, according to reports by BRUZZ.

It remained uncertain whether police would move to remove attendees and speakers from the venue, with organisers announcing a “gradual shutdown,” in which attendees leaving would not be able to return, but that otherwise, events would continue as usual.

But the dramatic images of police entering the premises caused some to question the mayor’s decision, drawing even more attention to the far-right conference.

The organisers and speakers of the conference decried the intervention as throttling free speech, with a spokesperson for Orban saying that “media freedom and free speech in Brussels are collapsing before our eyes.”

Orbán himself compared the order to communist repression, adding: “We didn’t give up then and we will not give up this time either!” in a statement on social media.