(Swiss Info) Despite multiple pleas from international bodies, Switzerland refuses to repatriate adult detainees from Syrian camps, a policy that effectively leaves seven Swiss children stranded in the war-torn country. They were just four and nine years old, when in 2016 their […]
(Brussels Times) The Federal Prosecutor’s Office is sticking to its initial submissions regarding the suspects charged with involvement in the 2016 Brussels attacks that left 32 people dead, spokesman Eric Van der Sypt said on Sunday. Confirming information carried by La Dernière […]
(Kathimerini) Legal procedures have been launched for the extradition to Belgium of three Iraqi nationals who were arrested in Athens last week on European arrest warrants. All three are accused of participating in a ring based in Belgium that trafficked migrants and […]
(AFP) The children of European jihadists left trapped in a Syrian camp after their fathers’ defeat on the battlefield now face radicalisation in their turn, a Belgian expert warns. Heidi De Pauw, director of the association Child Focus, has visited orphans and […]
(Brussels Times) Belgium is being taken to court by 19 victims of the terror attacks on Brussels Airport and Maelbeek metro station on 22 March 2016. “We accuse the government of a lack of information, a lack of help and inadequate legislation,” […]
(AFP) “Aline, Patricia, Leopold, Gilles, Johanna, Loubna …” Five years on, the 32 victims of the Brussels bomb attacks were the focus of Monday’s national day of commemoration. The March 22, 2016, bombings were the worst massacre in the country’s modern peacetime […]
(AFP) It has been five years since Islamist bombers slaughtered 32 people in the Belgian capital Brussels, in an attack then-prime minister Charles Michel says changed the country forever. In an AFP interview, Michel — now the president of the European Council […]
(Brussels Times) Next Monday, 22 March, sees the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks at Brussels Airport and on the Brussels metro at Maelbeek. But even five years after that shock, the country’s intelligence and security services are unable to work together […]
(Brussels Times) Two brothers who took part in the suicide bombings at Brussels Airport and Maelbeek metro in 2016 first carried out a random murder just to see what killing a human being would be like, according to investigation details revealed by […]
(Brussels Times) A lawyer who survived the terrorist attack in Brussels on 22 March 2016 is taking the Belgian government to court for its mishandling of the aftermath of the incident and its treatment of the victims. The man, Nic Reynaert, is […]
(AAP) A decision by Belgium to repatriate its child citizens from Syrian refugee camps has prompted fresh calls for Australia to bring home more than 40 children and their mothers. The European nation made the decision this week to take custody of […]
(AFP) Belgium must do everything it can to ensure the safe return of Belgian jihadists’ children being held in Kurdish-controlled camps in northern Syria, Prime Minister Alexander de Croo said Thursday. De Croo warned that conditions in the two camps, packed with […]
(Brussels Times) Jihadist Nora Verhoeven and several other Belgian women and children have reportedly gone missing from the Syrian Al-Hol prison camp, according to a psychologist involved in the possible repatriation of the group. Two doctors and two psychologists had planned to […]
(AFP) Belgium will put 14 suspects on trial for allegedly aiding those who carried out the November 2015 Paris attacks that left 130 people dead, the federal prosecution service said Wednesday. Those facing trial are accused of having transported, housed or provided […]
(Brussels Times) Federal defence minister Ludivine Dedonder (PS) has issued a formal refusal to consider a proposal from two N-VA MPs suggesting military personnel on street patrol be given more powers. The proposal comes from Theo Francken, formerly secretary of state for […]
(Breitbart) A former municipal elections candidate in Belgium who stood for the pro-sharia Islam party has been sentenced after a court found him guilty of making death threats. Philippe Latteur had dropped out of the 2018 race in Woluwe-Saint-Lambert because he could […]
(Brussels Times) Around 15,000 women in Belgium have been reported as victims of genital mutilation (FGM) and another 8,000 girls are still at risk, the Centre for Secular Action said on Friday, the eve of International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female […]
(Brussels Times) Iranian diplomat Assadollah Assadi, who has been convicted for his role in a foiled terrorist attack, was given a 20-year prison sentence by the criminal court in Antwerp on Thursday. The Vienna-based official plotted to bomb a rally of the […]
(Euronews) More than five years after the 2015 Paris attacks, the Belgian justice system has finally begun its examination of the people accused of aiding and abetting the terrorists. Tuesday’s hearing, which took place at the Brussels Council Chamber, was held in […]
(Breitbart) Since 2014, the Belgian police have identified and closed 192 entities, including prayer rooms and organisations, linked to radical Islamic terrorism in Brussels as part of an anti-terror project. The Belgian Fighters project — Belfi for short — placed a total […]
(Pink News) Belgian immigration authorities will deport a Turkish imam for saying on social media that being gay is an “illness” that causes “decay.” The imam led worship at the Green Mosque in Houthalen-Helchteren, Linburg, according to BBC Türkçe. When asked by the […]
(Algemeiner) A video showing two Palestinian skaters racing through an Orthodox Jewish neighborhood of the Belgian city of Antwerp as they unfurled a huge Palestinian flag has been removed from YouTube after going viral. Uploaded on Sunday, the video featured Gaza-born twin […]
(Morocco World News) Morocco has responded to the Belgian Minister of Justice Vincent Van [Quickenborne] after he accused Moroccan intelligence of mosque infiltration. Van Quickenborne, who claimed that Morocco had infiltrated the mosque in Cinquantenaire park in Brussels, described the mosque’s director […]
(Brussels Times) Ten of the thirteen suspects of the Brussels attacks of 22 March 2016 will be referred to the Court of Assizes, the Council Chamber of Brussels decided. The Court of Assizes deals with the most serious crimes. In this case, […]
(Brussels Times) The European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg has upheld a ban by the Flemish government on animal slaughter without prior stunning. The court was responding to a request from Belgium’s Constitutional Court for a ruling on a point of […]
(Brussels Times) Hearings held to prepare for the mammoth trial of those accused of the March 2016 terrorist attacks are expected to end in Brussels today, earlier than expected. The hearings have been held in the new Justitia court site at the […]
(Brussels Times) Today sees the start of the trial of those accused of the terrorist attacks of 22 March 2016, which cost the lives of 32 people and injured 340 more. For the first time ever, the proceedings will take place in […]
(Brussels Times) Belgium’s Muslim Executive has responded angrily to accusations aired this week of Moroccan intelligence infiltration of the Great Mosque in Brussels. The mosque, in Cinquantenaire park in Brussels, had applied for recognition as a local faith community, after losing its […]
(AFP) A Belgian court will deliver its verdict on January 22 in the trial of an Iranian diplomat accused of plotting to bomb an exiled opposition group’s rally, his lawyer told AFP. Assadollah Assadi, a 48-year-old diplomat formerly based in Vienna, faces […]
(Brussels Times) Federal justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne (Open VLD) has declined to grant a new recognition to the Great Mosque in the Cinquantenaire park in Brussels, unless there is a change of management. The Great Mosque had its recognition as a […]
(Brussels Times) Fouad Akrich, a former jihadist fighter in Syria, has been transferred from Turkey to a prison in Belgium, De Morgen newspaper reported on Saturday. The Federal Office of the Public Prosecutor confirmed that Akrich was transferred on Tuesday. Early this […]
(AFP) An Iranian diplomat went on trial in Belgium on Friday accused of plotting to bomb an Iranian opposition rally outside Paris, in a case that has stoked tensions with Tehran. Assadollah Assadi, formerly based in Vienna, faces a 20-year prison term […]
(Brussels Times) A court in Antwerp has sent a 24-year-old man back to jail for two years over a fake bomb threat sent out via Twitter last year. In October of last year, a man identified as Wildi E. sent out a […]
(Brussels Times) Flemish minister Zuhal Demir (N-VA) has said she is “relieved” at the arrest of a young man accused of sending her hate mail. The man, aged 24 and living in Demir’s home town of Genk in Limburg province, has admitted […]
(BBC) Sixty-nine suspected illegal immigrants and three crew members have been arrested after a fishing boat was intercepted off the coast of East Anglia, says the National Crime Agency. It has launched a people smuggling investigation after Border Force officials intercepted the […]
(Brussels Times) The Limburg prosecutor’s office has begun an investigation into an alleged email threat made against Flemish mobility minister Zuhal Demir (N-VA). The threat came in an email addressed to Demir following recent comments she made in relation to mosques connected […]
(Brussels Times) The Brussels municipality of Molenbeek forbids the arrival of the Danish anti-Islam politician Rasmus Paludan, who had announced he would come to the commune for a Koran-burning protest. In August, a public burning of the Koran in an immigration neighbourhood […]
(Brussels Times) Belgian police arrested two minors, who were suspected of planning a terrorist attack against the police, in the area of Eupen in the Liège province last weekend. Searches took place in Eupen and La Calamine, both in the Liège province, […]
(Brussels Times) The Brussels-West police zone stopped a protest against a so-called “witch” in the municipality of Molenbeek, after a group of people came together to denounce his use of black magic. Approximately 30 people gathered in front of the practice of […]
(Brussels Times) Military patrols will be maintained on the streets of the country’s cities until 2 December at the earliest, the government has decided. In May this year, the caretaker administration of Sophie Wilmès took the decision to bring an end to […]
(Brussels Times) A teacher was suspended from a municipal primary school in Molenbeek, Brussels, after showing a cartoon depicting the prophet Mohammed naked. The teacher was teaching a class on civic spirit to sixth-grade pupils and passed around a tablet, reportedly asking […]
(Brussels Times) The terrorist threat level in Belgium remains unchanged after the knife attack in the French city of Nice on Thursday, according to the Coordinating Body for Threat Analysis (L’Organe de coordination pour l’analyse de la menace — OCAM) and the […]
(Brussels Times) Brussels police have removed a number of posters depicting cartoons of the prophet Mohammed in the past week, Bruzz reports. The posters featured cartoons drawn by the artist known as Charb for the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Charb, born […]
(Brussels Times) The terrorists who carried out the attacks at Brussels Airport and the Brussels metro in March 2016 were able to go about their business unhindered thanks to the “passive and active support” of many of the residents of the Brussels […]
(News1) The Syria fighter Noura Firoud (24) from Vilvoorde returned to Belgium on Thursday with her three children. This is reported by the public prosecutor of Halle-Vilvoorde, which will take care of the three minor children. Noura Firoud was seventeen years old […]
(Reuters) An Iranian diplomat charged in Belgium with planning to bomb a meeting of an exiled Iranian opposition group in France warned authorities of possible retaliation by unidentified groups if he is found guilty, according to a police document. Belgian prosecutors charged […]
(JTA) Antwerp’s Jewish community will lose its military protection under a plan by Belgium’s new government to eliminate the presence of soldiers in urban centers. Approximately 18,000 Jews live in the city in close proximity. Several troops protect its Jewish quarter. A […]
(Brussels Times) The Flemish minister for animal welfare, Ben Weyts (N-VA), said he is “fundamentally in disagreement” with the opinion handed down yesterday by the advocate-general of the European Court of Justice, declaring a Flemish ban on ritual slaughter illegal. Flanders has […]
(Courthouse News) In a legal test case pitting animal rights advocates and far-right politicians against Muslim and Jewish religious leaders seeking to protect halal and kosher meats, a magistrate for Europe’s highest court on Thursday said bans on the ritual slaughtering of […]
(Brussels Times) A teacher of Islamic religion who was transferred from his school in Anderlecht in Brussels after publishing controversial remarks about the attack on the magazine Charlie Hebdo has no case for a breach of his freedom of expression, the European […]
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