For the first time, the United Nations Organization has decided to remove an event from its list of intangible cultural heritage. In March this year, the European Commission, for example, reacted to figures depicting Orthodox Jews with hook-noses and screw caps sitting on money bags.
Mayor Christoph D'Haese has argued that the town's residents have suffered "grotesque charges".
-We are neither anti-Semitic nor racist. All who support this act with malice. Aalst will always be the capital of operations and satire, he said in a television interview.
The carnival dates back to the Middle Ages, but the first official version was organized in 1923. The Aalst carnival was picked up on UNESCO's cultural heritage list in 2010.