Dec
Belgium’s center-right government is fighting for its survival this week after the largest coalition party broke away from its three partners and said it would not back a global U.N.-backed migration pact. The right-wing N-VA party started a social media campaign against the migration pact Tuesday, more than two months after Prime Minister Charles Michel […]
Nov
Belgian officials are investigating whether doctors improperly euthanized a woman with autism, the first criminal investigation in a euthanasia case since the practice was legalized in 2002 in the European nation. Three doctors from East Flanders are being investigated on suspicion of having “poisoned” Tine Nys in 2010. The 38-year-old had been diagnosed with Asperger’s […]
Nov
Protests against higher fuel prices have spilled into Belgium across the French border. Demonstrators wearing motorists’ yellow vests have been blocking motorways in central Belgium in recent days, prompting a police response. Hundreds of people confronted police on Belgian roads on Thursday, protesting against a hike in fuel prices. The demonstrations have flared up near the Walloon city of Feluy where Total’s […]
Nov
Filip Dewinter, a member of the Belgian Federal Parliament from the right-wing Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) party, is suspected of advising a Belgium-based Chinese company, which allegedly attempted to influence the decision-making process in Belgium, the Het Laatste Nieuws newspaper reported on Monday. The Belgian State Security Service suspects that Dewinter maintained close links to a […]
Oct
The Belgian government has been accused of financing Libyan militias involved in human trafficking through frozen Libyan assets, a report by Belgian RTBF radio said on Tuesday. An anonymous source “close to the secret services”, said that Belgium had not been neutral in Libya’s 2011 migration crisis, the radio reported. On Tuesday the Libya Herald […]
Sep
Belgium continues to crack down on migration. Following a Royal Decree in August – which cleared the way for detaining families with children – the Belgian government on Monday unveiled a string of new measures to combat illegal migration. Interior Minister Jan Jambon announced the opening of a “national administrative centre for transmigration”. The centre […]
Aug
Betul Baslik, a Turkish-origin social services and pedagogy graduate, has been denied an internship by a Belgian retirement home due to her headscarf. Born and raised in Belgium, Baslik told Anadolu Agency that she had recently been accepted to pursue her master’s degree at Vrije University Brussels, and she had been encouraged as a successful […]
Jun
New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) parliamentarian Zuhal Demir, who is accused of making PKK propaganda and known for her remarks against Muslims and Turkey, objects to Turkish language lessons given to children of Turkish descent after school. According to a news report published by Het Laatste Nieuws (HLN), around 50 students of Turkish descent in Ghent […]
May
A Belgian policeman fired the bullet that killed a two-year-old Kurdish girl during a high-speed chase of a van transporting migrants in Belgium last week, prosecutors confirmed Tuesday. Prosecutors announced the results of the probe into the death of Mawda Shawri, after officials said on Friday that she had died from a bullet wound in the […]
Apr
Belgium’s State Secretary for Asylum and Migration came under fire for implying that the country favors Christian asylum seekers over non-Christians, reports said. In a message posted to celebrate the Easter holiday on his official Twitter account, minister Theo Francken from the far-right New Flemish Alliance (N-VA Party) said that Belgium has welcomed 903 Syrian […]
