(Brussels Times) The new Flemish Minister President Liesbeth Homans from N-VA has initiated procedures against the Al Ihsaan mosque in Leuven. The mosque received substantial criticism back in 2017 following the imam’s preaching, justifying physical violence against women, and had to close […]
(Brussels Times) Headscarves and other religious symbols will no longer be banned in higher education schools managed by Brussels’ French Community Commission (COCOF), a member of the coalition government announced at the weekend. The ban was also lifted from Francophone adult education […]
(AFP) Suspects charged in connection with the 2016 Brussels suicide bombings will be tried next year in the former NATO headquarters in the city, Justice Minister Koen Geens said Friday. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attacks that killed 32 […]
(AFP) German authorities said Thursday they had arrested a Bosnian man wanted in connection with the 2015 Paris attacks and are preparing his extradition to Belgium. The German federal police office and Dresden prosecutors said in a joint statement that the 39-year-old […]
(AFP) Belgian counter-terror police have arrested a man suspected of plotting an attack against the US embassy in Brussels, federal prosecutors said Monday. The police on Saturday arrested the man following “converging signs raising fears of an attack against the US embassy,” […]
(Times of Israel) President Reuven Rivlin on Sunday met with a delegation of French imams and French and Belgian Muslim activists in Jerusalem. The group was headed by Hassen [Chalghoumi], an imam well-known in France for his involvement in interfaith initiatives. The […]
(Jerusalem Post) French Imam Hassen Chalghoumi, currently heading a delegation of French Muslims in Israel, said on Wednesday that anti-Zionism is antisemitism, and blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for incitement against Jews in France and Belgium. Chalghoumi is on his second visit to […]
(JTA) Prosecutors in Belgium dropped criminal complaints against a Turkish café owner who put up a sign banning Jews. A café in the town of Saint-Nicolas had displayed a sign saying dogs are welcome at his business, “but Jews are not.” The […]
(Brussels Times) A Belgian terrorist suspect in the Brussels and Paris terror attacks carried out months apart from each other has been extradited to France, Belgian federal prosecutors confirmed Wednesday. Ali El Haddad Asufi, wanted for his suspected involvement in the November […]
(Brussels Times) A proposal to open a temporary slaughterhouse for Eid al-Adha, one of the most important holidays of the Muslim faith, has been requested to the Brussels region through a letter sent by the Brussels municipality of Molenbeek. The decision to […]
(AFP) Belgian authorities have transferred Mehdi Nemmouche, the French jihadist who killed four people at a Jewish museum in 2014, to Paris for questioning over his suspected role in the kidnapping of four journalists in Syria in 2013, a legal source said […]
(Breitbart) A court in Belgium has forced the Belgian state to compensate radical Islamic prisoners because of a policy of isolating them from the rest of the prison population aimed at stopping the spread of radicalisation. The court has ordered the state […]
(Brussels Times) Several members of the Francophone environmentalist party, Ecolo, have distributed unapproved flyers in Laeken with political stances on wearing a headscarf in public administration and at school, and for un-anaesthetised slaughter. “Should the headscarf be allowed in the counter? Yes. […]
(Brussels Times) Over 300 Belgian academics from universities across the country have signed an open letter calling for the repatriation of Belgian children in Syria, prompted by the death in April of a one-year-old Belgian in the war-torn country. “This baby is […]
(Euronews) The co-founder of Belgium’s Islam Party has been given a suspended six-month jail term for gender discrimination. Redouane Ahrouch appeared on Belgian television channel RTL-TVI for a political debate but allegedly refused to make eye contact with journalist Emmanuelle Praet. Ahrouch […]
(Brussels Times) Belgium’s Muslim authority has renewed an invitation to foreign imams to observe prayer during the month of Ramadan, due to a lack of sufficient preachers in the country. A temporary months-long Belgian visa will be delivered to 81 Moroccan imams, […]
(Brussels Times) The federal state security agency has listed more than 100 organisations in Belgium representing the extremist religious Salafist tendency of Islam, according to a written answer provided to justice minister Koen Geens. Salafism is a tendency of Islam developed in […]
(AP) Belgian authorities say they have arrested a man on suspicion that he was part of a terrorist group and might have been planning an attack. Federal prosecutors said Monday the 22-year-old Belgian man, identified as Jimmy K., is charged with “taking […]
(National-UAE) Her mother still calls her baby doll, but Cassandra Bodart is a long way from home. After running away with an Islamic militant to Syria as a teenager six years ago, the 24-year-old Belgian lives in a Kurdish-run camp for ISIS […]
(AFP) The French jihadist who shot dead four people in a terrorist attack at a Jewish museum was on Tuesday sentenced to life in prison by a Brussels court, after prosecutors branded him a “coward” and a “psychopath.” Mehdi Nemmouche was convicted […]
(AFP) A French jihadist found guilty of shooting dead four people in a terrorist attack at Brussels’ Jewish museum joked Monday “life goes on” as prosecutors demanded he be jailed for life. A jury last week convicted Mehdi Nemmouche of “terrorist murder” […]
(Reuters) Two Belgian women who joined Islamic State in Syria said on Sunday they were losing hope they will ever go home after a Belgian court overturned a ruling to repatriate them with their six children. Tatiana Wielandt and Bouchra Abouallal, each […]
(AFP) A jury found Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche guilty Thursday of the “terrorist murders” of four people at Brussels’ Jewish museum, in the first case of a Syria jihad veteran to stage an attack in Europe. Nemmouche, 33, now faces a life sentence […]
(AP) A suspected jihadi insisted Tuesday that he’s innocent of terrorism charges over the 2014 killing of four people at Belgium’s Jewish museum, as the jury in his trial prepared to consider its verdict. Weeks after telling the Brussels criminal court that […]
(Reuters) A Belgian court’s decision to overturn a ruling forcing it to repatriate two Belgian women convicted of being Islamic State militants and their six children from Syria has left their family devastated. The grandmother of the six children, aged from 11 […]
(AFP) Lawyers for a Frenchman accused of murdering four people in a terrorist attack at the Jewish museum in Brussels insisted Thursday their client was not the killer, as his trial nears its end. Defence lawyers said Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, was not […]
(Reuters) Belgium has won an appeal against a judge’s order forcing it to repatriate two Belgian women convicted of being Islamic State militants and their six children from Syria, a court said on Wednesday. A judge ruled last year that the country […]
(AFP) Prosecutors on Monday poured scorn on the “indecent” silence of a Frenchman accused of shooting dead four people at the Jewish museum in Brussels as they began their closing summary. French national Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, could face life in prison if […]
(Brussels Times) The Flemish government will not accredit any new mosques in the region for the next five years, according to home affairs minister Liesbeth Homans. Homans (photo) had commissioned a study from the university of Leuven, which she now says justifies […]
(AFP) The trial of a Frenchman accused of shooting dead four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium was briefly interrupted on Monday as police were summoned to question a juror. “We cannot start the closing arguments under these conditions,” Judge Laurence […]
(Anadolu) A Turkish-Belgian politician on Friday decried the difficulties of living as a Muslim in Europe. Being a Muslim in Europe is hard in terms of both religious belief and wearing a headscarf, Mahinur Ozdemir, 36, a Belgian-born Muslim parliamentarian, told a […]
(AFP) Two French journalists on Thursday told a terrorism trial in Brussels that they had “no doubt” the accused Jewish museum killer is the man who imprisoned and tortured them in Syria. The former hostages came to Brussels to testify against Mehdi […]
(AFP) A young Frenchwoman on Monday pointed to Mehdi Nemmouche as the gunman at the Jewish museum in Brussels on May 24, 2014, the first witness at his trial to do so. Nemmouche, a 33-year-old Frenchman, faces life in prison if convicted […]
(AFP) The Israelis orphaned by the murderous gun attack on Belgium’s Jewish Museum testified on Thursday in the trial of the accused attacker. The defendant, Frenchman Mehdi Nemmouche, 33, appeared in the dock to insist that he was not behind the four […]
(AFP) The French alleged jihadist accused of carrying out a gun massacre in Belgium’s Jewish Museum denounced any attempt to intimidate trial lawyers and jurors Thursday. Appearing in the dock in Brussels main criminal court, 33-year-old Mehdi Nemmouche again denied shooting dead […]
(AFP) Two young Israeli women will Thursday face for the first time the alleged killer of their parents when they attend his trial for the Jewish museum attack in Brussels. The daughters of murdered Israeli couple Miriam and Emmanuel Riva will be […]
(AP) Belgian prosecutors said Wednesday that they are investigating an apparent attempt to intimidate a lawyer in the trial of a suspect in the 2014 shooting attack at the Brussels Jewish Museum. The Brussels prosecutor’s office said that a baseball bat and […]
(Brussels Times) At the start of the trial of Mehdi Nemmouche, the man accused of carrying out an armed attack on the Jewish museum in Brussels in May 2014 in which four people died, the defence laid out its main five-point defence […]
(Brussels Times) Some 182 terrorists, terrorist accomplices, hate preachers and radicalized individuals that have been sentenced since the rise of Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, and the beginning of the war in Syria, have been released. These figures have been requested […]
(AFP) The Belgian authorities have arrested two men suspected of plotting a terrorist attack and charged them with terrorism offences, federal prosecutors said Thursday. The main suspect was arrested in the Brussels neighborhood of Molenbeek while his alleged accomplice was arrested near […]
(Brussels Times) Questioned about the fact that he had told the investigating judge that he would speak in the Assise Court, terror suspect Mehdi Nemmouche said on Wednesday that he would do so at the end of his trial. “I shall express […]
(AFP) Judges investigating the Jewish museum attack in Brussels rejected on Tuesday defence claims that Israel’s Mossad intelligence agency may have played a role. Lawyers defending Mehdi Nemmouche deny charges that he shot dead four people at the museum in May 2014, […]
(AFP) Victims of the Jewish museum attack in Brussels were shot with “surgical” precision, first responders said Monday at the trial of French national Mehdi Nemmouche. Nemmouche, 33, the alleged jihadist gunman, faces life in prison if convicted of the charges of […]
(AFP) The mother of a victim of Belgium’s Jewish museum attack faced her son’s alleged killer for the first time on Friday, as the terror trial turned harrowing when the court was shown footage of the anti-Semitic murders. The accused gunman, Mehdi […]
(Brussels Times) Mehdi Nemmouche, the man accused of carrying out the attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels in which four people died in May 2014, spoke briefly at his trial in Brussels yesterday, as we report elsewhere, and then took a […]
(AFP) A man on trial as the alleged accomplice to the Jewish museum murders in Brussels denied any role in the 2014 shootings and said he was not a jihadist. Prosecutors told the court that Nacer Bendrer had been flagged years before […]
(Brussels Times) Out of 100 foreign fighters who have returned to Belgium from Syria, the Organ for Coordination of Threat Analysis (known as “OCAM”) believes that only one-quarter still present a serious terrorist threat. The finding is reported in the daily Het […]
(AFP) The Frenchman on trial accused of murdering four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium denied Tuesday he was the gunman and alleged the court had robbed him of defence witnesses. Asked by the judge whether he accepted the evidence linking […]
(AFP) The Frenchman accused of murdering four people at the Jewish Museum of Belgium had links with other jihadists, including those behind the Brussels and Paris attacks, investigators say. At least one lawyer wants to see if defendant Mehdi Nemmouche sheds more […]
(Anadolu) A new Belgian ban on the slaughter of un-stunned animals in the country’s Walloon and Flemish regions is getting a frosty reception from Muslims and Jews alike, who call it a disrespectful curb on religious freedom. Belgium “disappointed everybody when they […]
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