Johan Deckmyn

Johan Deckmyn (born 21 December 1967) is a Belgian-Flemish politician and a member of the Vlaams Belang party.

Biography Deckmyn studied computer science at Hogeschool Gent before becoming the director of an IT company.

Political career Deckmyn became active in the Vlaams Blok Jongeren, the youth wing of the former Vlaams Blok party and the nationalist student association VSG (Flemish Students Ghent) in the 1980s. In 2004, he was elected to the Flemish parliament for the reconfigured Vlaams Belang party and remained in this role until 2014. In 2019, he was re-elected to the Flemish parliament. Since 2011, he has been the group chairman of Vlaams Belang in the Ghent city council.

Visit to Emirdağ At the end of 2011, Deckmyn and fellow Vlaams Belang politician Tanguy Veys visited the Turkish town of Emirdağ as part of a campaign called Emirdağ needs you in which the Vlaams Belang chapter in Ghent wanted to convince people of Turkish origin to return to Turkey. During the visit, Deckmyn spoke to local MPs and the mayor of the Emirdağ. The trip led to Ghent councilor and sp.a politician Resul Tapmaz (who is of Turkish descent) making insulting statements about Vlaams Belang. Deckmyn filed a complaint against Tapmaz for slander and defamation. The court ruled that Tapmaz's statements were offensive but were not defamation and dismissed the complaint.