(Radio France) After an unscheduled two-week break provoked by cases of Covid-19 among the 14 accused, the Paris terror trial resumed on Tuesday with Belgian police evidence on the preliminary planning for the attacks — the efforts by the terrorists and their […]
(Brussels Times) More than 75 mosques in Flanders applied for recognition nearly three years ago, but have been kept waiting as the Muslim Executive “is not cooperating,” said Flemish Minister of Coexistence Bart Somers. Due to the lack of an effective recognition […]
(Brussels Times) Federal Justice Minister Vincent Van Quickenborne has decided to withdraw the recognition of the Muslim Executive — the official representation of Islam in Belgium — after the organisation has been under sustained criticism. The Muslim Executive receives approximately €600,000 in […]
(Brussels Times) On Wednesday, the Antwerp Court of Appeal ruled that a banner reading “Stop Islamisation” is not racist, as the court could not establish that it was motivated by “racism and xenophobia.” The judgement was in line with a decision of […]
(Brussels Times) Thirteen suspected members of a terrorist group were arrested in a major police operation in Antwerp on Tuesday morning. The suspects were alleged to have distributed jihadist propaganda, De Standaard reports. Nearly 100 investigators of the federal judicial police raided […]
(Brussels Times) About 500 people demonstrated on Saturday afternoon in Sint-Laureins, East Flanders, against a plan to set up a centre for asylum seekers in the Godshuis, a former monastery that has been empty for many years, Belga news agency reports. The […]
(Brussels Times) The deportation of a Moroccan national accused of spreading hate propaganda and being a “threat to Belgian society” is being blocked by the Council for Immigration Disputes. Analysis from OCAD (the Belgian intelligence body) and State Security describe Abdallah Ouahbour […]
(Politico) Belgian bans on the ritual slaughter of animals practiced by Jews and Muslims risk painting these minorities as “medieval” communities with no respect for animal life, the EU’s top official tasked with fighting anti-Semitism across Europe said. Since 2019, citing concerns […]
(VRT) VRT News has learnt that last October Belgian asylum and migration secretary Sammy Mahdi (Flemish Christian democrat) withdrew the residence rights of Mohamed Toujgani, the head imam at the Al Khalil Mosque in the Brussels borough of Molenbeek. Al Khalil is Belgium’s […]
(Anadolu) The Muslim community in Belgium will appeal at the European Court of Human Rights against the ban on ritual halal animal slaughtering. “The Belgian Muslim Executive and the Coordination Council of Islamic Institutions of Belgium will challenge at the European Court […]
(Radio France) Only two of the three witnesses called on Thursday actually gave evidence. Both were associates of the Abdeslam brothers at their café in Brussels. Both spoke by videolink from the federal police building in the Belgian capital. Neither had much […]
(Radio France) Tuesday’s session of the Paris attacks trial was dominated by a police report on the Clain family of jihadist extremists. The court also heard from the father of a dead terrorist, another man mystified by the transformation of … his […]
(Breitbart) Sammy Mahdi, Belgium’s secretary of state for asylum and migration, has stated that up to 70 per cent of “child” migrants submitted for age testing by the government turn out to be adults. Mahdi commented this week on the situation regarding […]
(Radio France) Wednesday’s session of the Paris terror trial was devoted to Belgian police evidence on the backgrounds of Abdellah Chouaa and Ali Oulkadi, two of the accused who are not in police custody and who sit near, but not inside, the […]
(AFP) The trial of 10 men accused of involvement in bombing attacks in Brussels that killed 32 people in 2016 will begin in October next year, a Belgian court said Wednesday. Six of the suspects, including French-Moroccan Salah Abdeslam, are already on […]
(Radio France) At the special criminal court in Paris where 20 men are being tried for their alleged involvement in the November 2015 terrorist killings, Tuesday’s hearing featured the resumption of Belgian police evidence from Brussels. The careers of two of the […]
(Radio France) This was another week of televised testimony from Belgian police investigators, with five of the accused still refusing to leave their cells in protest at the fact that the witnesses from Brussels are being allowed to testify anonymously. And then […]
(Radio France) If there is no doubt about the central part played in the November 2015 Paris terrorist attacks by Oussama Atar, the role of his brother, Yassine, remains much less clear. On Friday, a Belgian police officer presented as much evidence […]
(Radio France) The Paris attacks trial continued on Thursday with Belgian police giving evidence on the terrorist career of Oussama Atar, mastermind of the November 2015 murders that cost 131 people their lives. Atar himself is presumed dead in a coalition air […]
(Radio France) Wednesday, the 52nd day of the trial of 20 men suspected of involvement in the November 2015 Paris massacres, was devoted to Belgian police evidence, relaid by videolink from the office of the attorney general in Brussels. Four of the […]
(Radio France) The Paris attacks trial resumed on Tuesday with police evidence from Brussels on the background and Syrian activities of Mohamed Abrini. Abrini did not hear what was said about him, since he is one of five accused who continue to […]
(Radio France) The Paris special criminal court, where 20 men are being tried for their alleged participation in the November 2015 terrorist attacks in the French capital, this week heard evidence from an Austrian policeman in person, and from Belgian policemen via […]
(Radio France) The official aim of Friday’s session of the Paris attacks trial was to hear evidence from Belgian police investigators on the backgrounds of two of the dead terrorists and one other suspect. The hearing was, however, marked by the refusal […]
(Radio France) Four of the 14 men normally present in the courtroom at the Paris attacks trial in the central Paris Palais de Justice on Thursday refused to take their places in the box for the accused. Their legal teams explained that […]
(AFP) A Bulgarian court on Monday authorised the transfer of a man convicted of terrorism to Belgium, where he was sentenced in absentia to 20 years in prison in 2015. Yassine Lachiri was arrested in Bulgaria on November 10 after entering the […]
(AFP) A man convicted of terrorism in Belgium has been detained as he entered Bulgaria through its southeastern border with Turkey, prosecutors announced Thursday. Border police and state security agents intercepted the man on Wednesday in a special operation, the prosecution said […]
(Brussels Times) Islamic State (IS) terrorist and former head of Islamic radical group Sharia4Belgium, Hicham Chaib, was sentenced to life in prison in absentia and has been stripped of his Belgian nationality. After one hour of deliberation by the Antwerp Assize Court — […]
(Kurdistan 24) Belgian Islamic State (ISIS) fighters Olivier Calebout and Lucas Van Hessche have been sentenced to five years in jail by a court in Bruges, Belgium, for their membership in the group, Belgian media reported. The Belgian newspaper HLN reported that […]
(Brussels Times) Despite discrimination in Brussels institutions being illegal, a recent incident in which job applicants were prohibited from wearing a headscarf shows that it does still happen, says Brussels MP Fouad Ahidar. At the end of September, the Sainte-Geneviève Catholic elementary […]
(Brussels Times) Justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne has ordered the civilian intelligence service to investigate the affairs of the Muslim Executive, the body that represents the country’s Muslims. Van Quickenborne (Open VLD) revealed his plans on last night’s broadcast of the investigative […]
(Brussels Times) In a ruling on Thursday, the Belgian Constitutional Court supported the judgment of the European Court of Justice (CJEU) last December on banning animal slaughter without stunning. The ruling follows a request from the Belgian court to CJEU for clarification […]
(Brussels Times) On Monday, the Actiris unemployment office suspended a job offer from an elementary school in the Brussels municipality of Etterbeek that stated that “wearing a headscarf is forbidden.” The Sainte-Geneviève Catholic elementary school posted a job offer, looking for someone […]
(Brussels Times) The bank accounts of 295 terrorists are currently frozen in Belgium in an effort to prevent them from (aiding in) committing an attack. During 2021, 21 measures were taken to freeze assets, based on figures from the Coordination Office for […]
(AFP) Ten men accused of involvement in the March 2016 bomb attacks in Brussels that killed 32 people will face trial, Belgian federal prosecutors said Friday. Six of the suspects, including 32-year-old French-Moroccan Salah Abdeslam, are currently on trial in France over […]
(Radio France) The director of the investigation into the Belgian links to the November 2015 Paris attacks told the court on Tuesday that it was “the toughest case” she had ever worked on. She also praised the exceptional collaboration between France and […]
(Brussels Times) Security services have informed the Belgian prison system about a right-wing extremist staff member and another with radical Islamic tendencies. Criminal proceedings have been started against both, according to reporting from Belga News Agency. Belgium’s federal Minister of Justice Vincent […]
(National-UAE) A Belgian politician who investigated the suspected mastermind of the 2015 Paris terrorist attacks said mistakes have been repeated that have left youngsters at risk from dangerous radicalisers in their communities. Belgian-Moroccan citizen Oussama Atar is believed to have been killed […]
(Brussels Times) The Belgian Francophone broadcaster RTBF found recordings of an interview with terrorist Salah Abdeslam and two of his accomplices, immediately after the terror attacks in Paris, in its archives. On 14 November 2015, the morning after the terror attacks in […]
(Brussels Times) The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan is not expected to lead to an increased risk of terrorist acts in Belgium in the short term, experts said on Monday. The risk is also limited in the longer term, as the Taliban will […]
(Brussels Times) Sam Van Rooy, a Vlaams Belang member of the Flemish parliament, is the subject of 1,777 complaints made to Unia, the official agency against discrimination. The complaints were orchestrated by the Facebook group Allemaal Van Belang, who accused Van Rooy […]
(Brussels Times) The police in Belgium have a shortage of ammunition for their anti-terrorist weapons (SCAR machine guns) that were purchased after the attacks in Zaventem and Brussels. Belgium’s police had concluded a contract with an American company for €1 million for […]
(Reuters) Six EU member states have warned the bloc’s executive against halting deportations of rejected Afghan asylum seekers arriving in Europe despite major advances of Taliban militants in their country. The Taliban, fighting to reimpose strict Islamic law after their 2001 ouster, […]
(Middle East Eye) On 16 July, the majority of the women and children held at al-Roj camp were still asleep when a convoy of cars entered the open-air prison in northeastern Syria. A few minutes later, at around 5.30am, six Belgian [women] […]
(Breitbart) A jihadist wanted by Spain on a European arrest warrant (EAW) has been apprehended by Belgian police in the no-go zone of Molenbeek, Brussels, a notorious hotbed of radical Islamist activity. The 22-year-old jihadist had previously been sentenced to two years […]
(Brussels Times) This morning a military aircraft landed at Melsbroek airfield outside Brussels, carrying six women and ten children repatriated from a refugee camp in Syria. The women, aged between 25 and 53 years, have been held in the Kurdish-run camp Roj […]
(BBC) Ten children and six mothers held in a prison camp for jihadists in Syria have been flown home to Belgium. It is the biggest repatriation of suspected Islamic State (IS) members since the group’s fall in 2019. Hundreds of Europeans who […]
(Euronews) The resignation of a government representative in Belgium has sparked fresh political debate about Islamic headscarves. [Ihsane] Haouach, a Belgian-Moroccan woman, stepped down on Friday from her role as a government commissioner at the Institute for the Equality of Women and […]
(Brussels Times) The decision to implement women-only hours and allow the wearing of a burkini in Brussels’ recently opened public open-air swimming pool is at the base of a political debate in Belgium. The FLOW swimming pool opened its doors in the […]
(Brussels Times) On Friday, the leader of the Francophone liberal MR party, Georges-Louis Bouchez, protested against the fact that Brussels’ first public open-air swimming pool allows women to wear a burkini. The FLOW pool, which opened at the Pierre Marchant bridge in […]
(AFP) Belgium on Thursday transferred suspect Mohamed Abrini to France to stand trial in September among 14 people accused of involvement in the 2015 Paris attacks, sources close to the case said. Abrini — known as the “man in the hat” from […]
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