Belgium
Recent stories
Family reunification measures tightened
Family reunification regulations have been tightened with preconditions applied before foreign partners are allowed to enter Belgium and the minimum age requirement raised from eighteen to twenty-one.
1 July 2006 (57 words)
New legislation on forced marriages
The cabinet has approved a measure to ban forced marriages and to increase punishment for those found guilty of promoting marriage by force.
1 July 2006 (138 words)
Racist killing sparks outrage against VB
Municipal elections are due to be held in Belgium in October 2006.
16 May 2006 (599 words)
Limits set on foreign students in post-secondary education
A decision by the minister of education of the French-speaking region, to limit to 30 per cent the number of foreign students admitted into certain faculties of post-secondary education, has led to demonstrations by teachers, students and their unions.
1 April 2006 (54 words)
Vlams Blok relaunched as Vlaams Belang
On 14 November, the Vlaams Blok dissolved itself and formed a new party, the Vlaams Belang (VB).
14 December 2004 (399 words)
Vlaams Belang demands integration test
The Vlaams Belang has called for all foreign residents in Flanders to pass an 'integration test' composed of knowledge of the Dutch language and Flemish culture.
13 December 2004 (89 words)
Discipline charges dropped in Adamu case
Disciplinary charges against two of the four police officers charged with the death of Semira Adamu have been dropped and the same is expected for the remaining officers.
10 December 2004 (81 words)
Wallonia does not welcome foreigners
According to an intercultural exchange body which organises for families across Europe to accept foreign students on study trips abroad, the French-speaking south of Belgium is one of the most inhospitable regions.
1 December 2004 (42 words)
Orthodox British Jew murdered in Antwerp
Moshe Yitzchak Naeh, 20 a Hassidic Jew who worked as secretary to the local rabbi, was found shot in the head outside his home as he unloaded his car at 2am on 18 November.
22 November 2004 (103 words)
Death threat to protestor over van Gogh killing
Mimount Moussakla, a socialist senator was put under police protection after receiving death threats when she said that Belgium's Muslim Executive (an umbrella group) should have organised protests against the murder of Theo van Gogh, killed in Amsterdam by an alleged extremist on 2 November.
22 November 2004 (77 words)
King defends boss who allows the headscarf
King Albert II has voiced solidarity with a company boss who faces a death threat for defending an Islamic employee's right to wear the headscarf.
30 October 2004 (69 words)
Remembering Semira Adamu
On 25 September 2004, six years after her death, hundreds of anti-racists took part in a memorial in Brussels to Semira Adamu, who was killed using the 'cushion technique' during a deportation.
19 September 2004 (40 words)
Socialist burgomaster allows neo-Nazis to march
Antiracists in Anvers were angry that Patrick Janssens, the socialist burgomaster of Anvers allowed neo-Nazis of the Droite Verte International to hold a demonstration in September 2004 whilst the same man banned anti-racists from holding a celebration 'living together against racism' in June.
17 September 2004 (69 words)
Rethink on cordon sanitaire
Belgian politicians in Antwerp have been refusing to share power with the VB, though it represents the second political force in Flanders.
9 September 2004 (258 words)
Vlaams Blok in cosmetic make over following court case?
Despite, or perhaps because of, its success in the June polls (23 per cent in European elections, 24 per cent in the Flemish poll) the VB is apparently having to rethink some of its policies in order to enter into power-sharing with other parties.
9 September 2004 (208 words)
Forced name changes
Some employers in Flanders are forcing immigrant workers to adopt Belgian-sounding names.
2 September 2004 (64 words)
Amnesty International concerned about police violence and other abuses
In its observations on Belgium's human rights record, the Human Rights Committee has expressed dismay about the continuing reports of police brutality, often accompanied by acts of racial discrimination.
2 August 2004 (137 words)
Antwerp: Jewish student stabbed
Up to a thousand people demanding zero tolerance of anti-Semitism gathered in Antwerp to protest at the near-fatal stabbing of a 16-year-old yeshivah student on 24 June.
28 July 2004 (139 words)
Christian Democrats call for end of VB cordon sanitaire
The Flemish Christian Democratic Party (CD&V) has called on the mainstream parties to revise the policy whereby a cordon sanitaire has been kept around the Blok since its electoral breakthrough in 1991.
27 July 2004 (119 words)
Health system fails foreigners
Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) reports that thousands of foreigners are going without medical care because they find the health system so confusing and forbidding.
14 July 2004 (79 words)
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