Belgians fight terror with cat tweets

As anti-terrorism operations were conducted in a total of 19 raids in Brussels on Sunday night, Belgians spontaneously began sharing cat photos on Twitter, drawing international attention.

Belgian police on Sunday sent out a request to the public for “radio silence on social media”, to avoid alarming the targeted suspects with information about police movements. But some users found it difficult to stop all communication via Twitter, opting instead to post light-hearted photos of cats under the hashtag #BrusselsLockdown, which quickly became a trending topic.

my vote for #EUtweets this week goes to... #BrusselsLockdown pic.twitter.com/XZ5wXtKZw7

— Gilles Bordelais (@Gilles_PPDE) November 22, 2015

The cat tweets drew international attention as an expression of Belgian surrealism, with numerous mentions in the press, including BBC, The Guardian and the US site BuzzFeed.