Feb
Racial discrimination against Africans “is endemic” in Belgium’s institutions and the nation needs to apologize for the crimes committed during its colonization of Congo and make reparations, U.N. experts said Monday. Belgium’s actions in Congo have long been criticized as one of the worst examples of colonial abuse. Writer Adam Hochschild alleged in his 1998 book […]
Jan
The Brussels Criminal Court has sentenced 54-year-old woman to three years in jail for attacking her 19-year-old daughter. The woman had stabbed her daughter in the abdomen and under the chin after she had converted to Islam and secretly married a Muslim. The judge stated that the sentence would show the mother that her behavior was “unacceptable,” reported Belgian […]
Dec
As the year 2018 came to a close Monday, it brought with it an end to kosher slaughter in the northern Flanders region of Belgium, home to half of the country’s Jewish population and a major supplier of meat for European Jewish communities. In June 2017, the parliament in the Flemish region, one of the […]
Dec
Belgium’s Africa Museum will reopen to the public on 9 December after five years of renovations designed to modernize the museum from an exhibition of pro-colonial propaganda to one that is critical of Belgium’s imperialist past. The museum, full of artefacts and stuffed wildlife, was often criticized for ignoring the brutalities of King Leopold II’s […]
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 […]
