Belgium braces for another surge in COVID-19 cases

October 21, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium's government warned Thursday that the country could well be on the cusp of another major surge in COVID-19 cases despite its high vaccination rate. Though the government recently relaxed the mandatory use of facemasks, it is again starting to encourage the population to use them to counter a rise in cases reminiscent of the first three surges of the past 1 1/2 years.

“We are clearly in a fourth wave,” Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke told the VRT network. “We will see a major increase in infections and, unfortunately, hospital admissions.” The government has this month loosened some restrictions, including allowing for more indoor events and dropping requirements for customers to wear masks in bars.

Belgium, a nation of 11 million, again has over 3,000 infections a day, an increase of 50% compared to the week earlier. Hospital admissions are at 80 a day now, an increase of over 40%. Even if the total numbers are still manageable, there are worries about the curve spiking again, even though 85 percent of the adult population is vaccinated.

Brussels bracing for illegal festival amid fears of violence

April 27, 2021

BRUSSELS (AP) — Brussels prosecutor's office warned potential partygoers they should stay away from an unauthorized gathering planned this weekend in one of the city's biggest parks as police briefly detained one of the organizers on Tuesday.

After an April Fools’ party drew thousands of people to Brussels’ Bois de la Cambre and ended in clashes with police last month, a sequel to the the event has been advertised by a group called the Abyss for Saturday in the same park.

In a statement Tuesday, prosecutors said the manager in charge of the group's Facebook page was arrested and questioned as part of an investigation into the party before he got released. Organizers, who have asked in vain for Belgium's Interior Ministry to grant them permission to host the event, expressed their “surprise" at the arrest, which came as Belgium continues to struggle with the coronavirus.

The country with 11.5 million inhabitants has been severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic, reporting over 976,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and more than 24,000 virus-related deaths. Earlier this month, the city's authorities said there was only just one bed left in Brussels' intensive care units when a fire broke in the working-class neighborhood of Anderlecht, a consequence of the crippling strain on the hospital system.

“I am willing to listen to requests from people who want to organize events, but this is not the time," Brussels mayor Philippe Close said. “We have to hear what is going on in our hospitals. The situation remains difficult."

In April, clashes between Belgian police and a large crowd of some 2,000 people left several people injured at the Bois de La Cambre. Violence started after police ordered the crowd to disperse toward the end of the afternoon and revelers threw bottles and other projectiles at police, who used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the crowd.

In a bid to avoid a repeat of the incidents, Belgian police have contacted Facebook to find out how to take down from the social network the promotion of Saturday's party, local media reported. Meanwhile, Brussels prosecutor’s office said that anyone breaching COVID-19 restrictions could be prosecuted.

Amid a growing sense of discontent against coronavirus measures taken by the government, some cafes and restaurant owners in the French-speaking region of Wallonia have also planned to defy restrictions and to reopen their terraces on Saturday, a week before the date set for the reopening.

Report: Belgium nursing homes failed patients amid pandemic

November 16, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — Amnesty International said Belgium authorities “abandoned” thousands of elderly people who died in nursing homes during the coronavirus pandemic following an investigation published Monday that described the situation as “human rights violations."

One of the hardest-hit countries in Europe, Belgium has reported more than 531,000 confirmed virus cases and more than 14,400 deaths linked to the coronavirus. During the first wave of the pandemic last spring, the European nation of 11.5 million people recorded a majority of its COVID-19-related deaths in nursing homes.

Between March and October, Amnesty International said “a staggering" 61.3% of all COVID-19 deaths in Belgium took place in nursing homes. The group said authorities weren't quick enough in implementing measures to protect nursing home residents and staff during this period, failing to protect their human rights.

Amnesty International said one of the reasons so many people died in homes is because infected residents weren't transferred to hospitals to receive treatment. “The results of our investigation allow us to affirm that (care homes) and their residents were abandoned by our authorities until this tragedy was publicly denounced and the worst of the first phase of the pandemic was over,” said Philippe Hensmans, the director of Amnesty International Belgium.

When the virus struck Europe hard in March, Belgium was caught off guard and unprepared, faced with a critical shortage of personal protective equipment. As infections surged across the country, nursing homes were quickly overwhelmed by the frenetic pace of contamination as local authorities even requested the help of Belgian armed forces to cope.

Belgium had one of the highest death rates worldwide during the first wave. But while nursing home staff was overwhelmed, the country’s hospitals weathered the crisis, as their intensive care units never reached their 2,000-bed capacity. Vincent Fredericq, the general secretary of the care homes federation Femarbel, told Amnesty International that many residents in need of medical assistance were left behind.

“Everyone was struck by the images of the Italian and Spanish hospitals,” he said. “These situations had a great impact on our federal decision-makers, who said from the outset that it was absolutely necessary to avoid overloading intensive care. Nursing homes have been relegated to second line and residents and staff have been the victims.”

Amnesty International based its investigation on testimonies from nursing home residents and staff, employees of non-governmental organizations defending residents’ rights and directors of nursing homes. The group also spoke with families of elderly people currently living in homes or who died during the pandemic. Most of the people interviewed asked to remain anonymous so that they could speak freely.

Quoting figures released by Doctors Without Borders, the group said only 57% of serious cases in care homes were transferred to hospitals because of “a harmful interpretation of sorting guidelines.” “Some older people have probably died prematurely as a result,” Amnesty International said. “It took months before a circular explicitly stated that transfer to hospital was still possible, if it was in accordance with the patient’s interests and wishes, regardless of age.”

Maggie De Block, the former Belgian health minister in charge during the early months of the pandemic, refuted last month accusations that access to hospitals was denied to nursing home residents. “There has never been a message either from the federal government or from my regional colleagues saying that we should not hospitalize people who need it, or that we can refuse elderly or disabled people,” she told local media RTBF.

The prime minister's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press. More than half of the care providers quizzed during the group's investigation said they didn't receive training on how to use protective equipment and weren't sufficiently informed about the virus. Amnesty International said systematic testing of nursing home employees in Belgium wasn't introduced before August, with only one test per month.

One nursing home resident identified as Henriette told Amnesty International that she was afraid every time a care worker came in that they would bring the virus in with them. The group also noted that the restrictive measures limiting family visits had negative repercussions on many residents' health. Some relatives told Amnesty International that when they were allowed back, they realized their loved ones had been neglected because staffers were overwhelmed.

“It was very difficult for my husband to eat alone. As time went by, he lost weight,” the wife of one resident said. “When I asked the staff about it, a care worker told me: ‘We can’t feed everyone every day.”

Divided Belgium turns into Europe's worst virus hot spot

October 28, 2020

BUIZINGEN, Belgium (AP) — Small, yet so divided, Belgium has been hit hard again by the pandemic, and now presents some of the most worrying statistics in a continent reeling under a coronavirus resurgence.

If ever there was a common enemy for the rival Dutch- and French-speaking citizens and regions to fight, this would surely be it. But even now cooperation goes against the grain in Belgium, to the extent that the country's Roman Catholics bishops issued a call for all, in the name of the Lord, to show some unity.

“We can win the battle against the coronavirus only if we do it together," the bishops said in a joint letter ahead of Sunday's All Saints Day, highlighting the different rules imposed by the country's national and three regional governments, which are responsible for an area 300 kilometers (185 miles) at its widest reach.

This week, news struck that the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control had recorded Belgium — shoehorned in between Germany, France and the Netherlands — as having the highest 14-day cumulative number of COVID-19 cases per 100,000 citizens, just surpassing the Czech Republic.

At 1,390.9 per 100,000 people, it far outstrips even hotbeds like France or Spain. In all, 11,038 people have died so far in the pandemic. All this in a wealthy nation of 11.5 million people where no fewer than nine ministers — national and regional — have a say on health issues. The dictum “less is more" never reached the Belgian high echelons of power.

“A great many politicians can claim power but, in the end, no one is ever responsible,” historian and former member of the European Parliament Luckas Vander Taelen said. He called Belgium's system of multiple layers of government to serve the 6.5 million Dutch-speaking Flemings in the north and the 5 million Francophones “institutional lasagna."

The pandemic finds in Belgium one of the most densely populated countries in Europe, a crossroad of international trade. Its capital, Brussels, hosts the headquarters of the 27-nation European Union with its steady stream of international visitors. But Belgium's political makeup, with its multiple regional authorities, also creates a kaleidoscope of different government health measures.

Throughout the crisis, the Belgian population was unified in one thing: The general sense of bewilderment about the ever-changing rules imposed by the different layers of government and a growing confusion caused by clumsy communication. For someone living near Brussels, a bar closing hour or a maximum cap on attending a funeral might face different rules within just 20 kilometers (12 miles).

Late Tuesday, the regional government of Flanders finally considered adapting its coronavirus curfew to match that of the francophone region and Brussels, but then thought better of it. While it stays at midnight in the north of the country, it is at 10 p.m. in other areas, complicating life for everyone who travels from one region to the other, as many commuters do.

Underscoring the threat, authorities said that on Tuesday, 689 people were rushed to hospital with COVID-19, 60 more than the record during the March peak. “And admissions continue to rise," said crisis center virologist Steven Van Gucht. He added that ICU admissions doubled every 8 days and, if it continued unabated, would reach the saturation level of 2,000 patients around Nov. 6.

Even during the health crisis, linguistic strife has raised its head, something which has never been fully contained during almost two centuries and two World Wars, when the whole nation faced one common enemy.

Christoph D'Haese, the mayor of Aalst in Flanders, recently said he would no longer accept patients from Brussels, Belgium's largely francophone capital. “Medical solidarity has limits and borders," he said. Hospital authorities disagreed and insisted that the essence of medical solidarity was the lack of borders.

When the Brussels UZ hospital, with Flemish roots, warned that the capital needed to take tougher action to contain the crisis, the Francophone Brussels Health Minister Alain Maron sniped back that “when a Flemish hospital in Brussels raises a problem, it is a major issue, and when six of 14 hospitals in (Flemish) Antwerp are in the same situation, nobody talks about it."

Vander Taelen has seen it all before. “So fast, you get to the level of village politics. Even when lives are at stake," he said. Paradoxically compounding the problems of too many governments is the issue that Belgium had been without a fully-functioning national government for almost 500 days before Prime Minister Alexander De Croo cobbled together a 7-party coalition one month ago. One of the last measures his predecessor took in September was to relax virus measures — against the advice of many medical experts. That relaxation is now partly blamed for the record surge this fall.

Charles Michel, the European Union Council President, was groomed in Belgian politics but now sees that against such a foe as the coronavirus only a continent-wide approach is effective, not a patchwork of ill-coordinated local measures.

“Of course, health – like social affairs – is primarily a matter for the member states, and even the regions. However, this crisis has already demonstrated that no single country can tackle the situation on its own," he said Tuesday. “Any management of this epidemic on a patchwork basis, whereby some would emerge better off than others, would serve only to exacerbate the economic imbalances."

And when it comes to the patchwork of rules in Belgium, the Roman Catholic bishops urged everyone to apply one rule of thumb: “Go for the safest measure, the safest figure. In the short term it is the toughest approach. In the long term, the most secure."

Restrictions tightened, but no new virus lockdown in Belgium

October 23, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgian Prime minister Alexander De Croo stopped short Friday of imposing another full lockdown, as the country did in March, but introduced a series of new restrictive measures as the number of COVID-19-related hospital admissions and deaths continues to soar.

Already severely hit during the first wave of the pandemic, Belgium is now the second-worst country in the European Union in terms of coronavirus infections per 100,000 inhabitants. “We want to ensure that our doctors and hospitals can keep doing their work, that children can continue attending schools and that businesses can continue working while preserving as much as possible the mental health of our population,” De Croo said as he unveiled the new restrictions during a press conference.

Belgium had already introduced a list of measures aimed at slowing infections, including a night-time curfew and closing bars and restaurants. Visits at nursing homes have also been limited, but many health experts think the new curtailment won’t be enough to break the contagion chain.

“We were told strong and hard measures would be announced, we don’t see them,” epidemiologist Yves Coppieters told broadcaster RTBF. According to the latest official figures, some 10,000 new people are infected on a daily basis by the virus, which has already killed more than 10,500 people in the small nation of just 11.5 million. The health situation is so dramatic in nine out of 10 of Belgium’s provinces that authorities have recently warned intensive care units will hit their capacity by mid-November if new coronavirus cases continue to soar at the same pace.

To avoid a collapse of the health system, health minister Frank Vandenbroucke said that the number of beds available in ICUs will be increased to 2,300, while nonurgent operations will be postponed over the next four weeks.

Following government talks held via video conference after several ministers got infected by the virus, De Croo decided to reinforce the sanitary protocols mainly in the culture and sports sectors. Until Nov. 19, theaters and cinemas will be allowed to accommodate a maximum audience of 200, while sports fans are banned from attending matches. In amateur sports, competitions involving over-18 athletes are suspended.

“It's a tough blow, but the moment is serious and we need to show solidarity," said Mehdi Bayat, the president of the Belgian soccer union. Detailing the measures, Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon said attendance at universities will be limited to 20 percent of capacity in lecture halls, while amusement parks will be closed from Friday.

De Croo also sent a message of support to business owners and workers affected by the measures who struggle financially and are losing their jobs. “We are putting everything in place to help them, we are going through a national crisis that requires national solidarity,” De Croo said.

Belgian beach brawl fuels virus, political, climate tension

August 12, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — It started as a Saturday trip to Belgium's coast, a chance to escape a heat wave and coronavirus restrictions for a while. As the tide came in, the beach got crowded. Someone complained about the music being too loud. The mood quickly turned ugly.

Within minutes, dozens of people were battling it out on the sands. Some beach-goers threw bottles and umbrellas at police officers who intervened. By Sunday, a "gang of outsiders” was being blamed, and two coastal communities had banned day trippers from the city. Officers stood ready at railway stations and blocked traffic, turning away people who can't afford to live, work, or pay for hotel reservations in the area. Three teens, shirtless, still in their swimming gear, were charged with “armed rebellion.”

On Tuesday, Belgium's interior minister was trying to explain how it all happened, summoned to a tetchy hearing by the main populist party and a far-right nationalist faction. Civic groups called for action, urging people from poorer neighborhoods — among the hardest-hit by the virus — to find lawyers if they felt harassed by police “racial profiling,” or by zealous officials protecting wealthy holiday-makers at well-to-do beach communities.

Welcome to Belgium; a country that still has no full-time government 18 months after the last cabinet resigned; a country with one of the highest COVID-19 mortality rates in the world per population where restrictions are testing peoples’ patience; a country that just doesn’t get much really hot weather. It’s a simmering political soup on the verge of boiling over.

At the seaside resort of Knokke-Heist, where golf carts with license plates ply well-kept streets, there was ample room to stretch out on the beach early this week. Local authorities have banished day-trippers, who include many minorities, from Belgian cities or France from its 15-kilometer (10-mile) stretch of sands until the heat wave — which saw temperatures of up to 36 degrees Celsius (97 Fahrenheit) — is over.

Down a tree-lined street, at a home that he says dates from Napoleonic times, the mayor — Count Leopold Lippens — told The Associated Press that Knokke-Heist is an exclusive area prized for its many shops, restaurants and art galleries, and that only law-abiding people should bother to come.

“We are here in a country called Belgium, where the law is the law,” Lippens said. “We want the rules to be followed and if the rules are not followed, well, we will use our police force to have them followed.”

“People who don’t do that, they will be eradicated from this place,” he said. Asked whether he worried that banning ordinary people from spending the day might tarnish the image of his town, the mayor said: “People come because they like it, and they like it because it’s quality. We don’t want quantity, we want quality."

That view grates with Thierry Dupiereux, information officer with Belgium’s League of Families, a social organization aimed at helping families in need, and which lobbies for policy change. He says that the beach bans deprive people of “a safety-valve that helps them unwind.”

Almost 10,000 people have died from the coronavirus in Belgium — a country of just 11.5 million — and Dupiereux said the travel restrictions are “a social injustice” aimed at a part of society that has been hardest hit by the disease and the job losses that followed; people “who have little money, who can’t afford a week’s vacation at the beach or holidays abroad.”

The coast is just a 90-minute train ride from the capital Brussels. Other places where people without cars could get away and cool off are poorly served by public transport. Many youths boarded trains in Brussels on Tuesday, but the Knokke-Heist station was almost empty.

At first, the national rail service SNCB resisted calls to cut the number of beach-bound trains, but caved in as political pressure mounted and will now provide fewer this coming weekend. A number of lawmakers urged Interior Minister Pieter De Crem to rein in the SNCB, notably Bjorn Answeeuw, from the populist N-VA party.

Belgium’s last government collapsed when the N-VA pulled out. The party is too big to ignore and has been central in talks to form a new administration over the 14 months since the last election. During that time, the N-VA has routinely criticized the interim government installed to manage the COVID-19 crisis. Fears over migration have proved a vote winner for the party.

“Going freely to the coast is a right that we all have. Being beach day-trippers does not make us terrorists for a day,” De Crem said. For people like those involved in Saturday's beach riot in Blankenberge, De Crem suggested setting up a register — similar to ones used for soccer hooligans — and banning those on it from going to the coast.

Other parliamentarians expressed concern about the way police have acknowledged stopping people who merely look like the youths involved in the riot. “It wasn’t a night club bouncer who said this, it was a police officer,” said Socialist lawmaker Herve Rigot.

At the League of Families, Thierry Dupiereux said it’s difficult to work out who to believe these days, when the coronavirus, the lack of a full-time government and even a heat wave weigh on everyone’s minds and make for strange times.

“We’re in a political situation in Belgium today where a lot is at stake. We don’t always know who is acting on behalf of whom. There are lots of political games being played,” he said. In a surprising about-face a few hours after speaking to AP, and after the parliamentary hearing — which might underline the pressures involved — Mayor Lippens announced that day-trippers could return to Knokke-Heist as of Wednesday.

Mayo reported from Knokke-Heist, Belgium. Mark Carlson in Brussels contributed to this report.

Belgium unveils plan to avoid lockdown, curfew in Antwerp

July 28, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium's prime minister put the brakes on the country's coronavirus exit plan Monday with a set of drastic social distancing measures aimed at avoiding a new general lockdown as local authorities in the province of Antwerp imposed a curfew amid a surge of COVID-19 infections.

Speaking after an urgent meeting of the national security council, Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes said that from next Wednesday contacts outside every household will be limited to the same five people over the next four weeks, as the so-called “social bubble” now applies to a house and its occupants and not to individuals. Belgian residents are currently allowed to meet with 15 different people per week.

“Our aim is clear — avoid another full lockdown,” Wilmes said. After a sharp decline of infections, Belgium has witnessed a surge in confirmed cases over the past three weeks. According to figures released Monday, the number rose 71% from July 17-23 compared to the previous 7 days, with 47% of the cases detected in Antwerp province.

Authorities in the northern region announced extra restrictions including a curfew from 11.30 p.m. to 6 a.m and the mandatory wear of face masks in public space when a distance of 1.5 meter between individuals can't be observed. Cafes and restaurants will also have to close at 11 p.m while remote working is required.

The number of cases also increased greatly in the rest of the country, with an average of 279 new daily cases and a 30% rise in the number of people admitted to hospital. “I fully realize that everyone has already made heavy sacrifices in recent months. That is why it is also a great pity that we, our strong region, are now facing a very strong increase in the number of infections,” Antwerp provincial governor Cathy Berx was quoted as saying by local newspaper Gazet van Antwerpen. “Which may also lead to an increase in hospital admissions and unfortunately possibly also in the number of deaths.”

The curfew should enter into force once the decision is signed by Berx. Wilmes said that the restrictions at federal level — which also include lowering crowd limits at public events to 100 people indoors and 200 people outdoors — could be sufficient to avoid further restrictions and to ensure children can return to school en masse in September, after the summer break.

Wilmes exhorted people to get back to working remotely when possible, “one of the keys for a successful deconfinement.” She added that shoppers should run errands alone from now on and limit the time they spend in stores to 30 minutes. In addition, family or friends' gatherings —including wedding receptions — will be limited to a maximum of 10 people.

“However, the most important approach is the individual one,” Wilmes said. “If we cannot contain the coronavirus, it will be a collective failure.” Meanwhile, Brussels mayor Philippe Close announced the cancellation of the 140th edition of the city's annual summer funfair, saying it was impossible for the popular event to take place on account of the latest health guidelines.

Belgium, a country with 11.5 million inhabitants, has been particularly hard hit by the virus, with more than 66,000 cases and 9,821 deaths. The government had already tightened restrictions last week, making the use of face masks mandatory in crowded outdoor spaces while requiring bar and restaurant owners to register contact details of customers.

Women taken from African mothers by Belgium now want redress

July 01, 2020

NEDER-OVER-HEEMBEEK, Belgium (AP) — Monique Bitu Bingi was only 4 years old when she was taken from her family in Belgian Congo and locked up in a religious mission run by Catholic nuns. Her friend Lea Tavares Mujinga was even younger the day her mother was forced to give her up: just a 2-year-old toddler.

Born from a white settler father and a Black mother — and despised because of their biracial heritage — both girls were seized from their mothers and separated from their African roots by Belgian authorities that ruled over the area from 1908-1960.

During colonial times, they, like thousands of other biracial children known as “métis,” were taken away and raised in Belgian institutions as the colonial power promoted a strict separation of white and Black people and systematically tried to prevent interracial unions.

At the St. Vincent de Paul sisters' mission, they went through years of deprivation and abuse that have left indelible scars. “We have been destroyed, both morally and psychologically,” Bitu Bingi told The Associated Press on Monday, the eve of the 60th anniversary of Congo’s independence on June 30, 1960. “We have lost our identities. Excuses are not enough.”

Now in their 70s, Bitu Bingi and Tavares Mujinga want reparations. Along with three other biracial women born between 1945 and 1950 in the African country, they have filed a lawsuit in Brussels targeting the Belgian state for crimes against humanity.

Their complaint comes amid growing demands that Belgium reassess its colonial past. In the wake of protests against racial inequality in the United States, several statues of King Leopold II, who is blamed for the deaths of millions of Africans during Belgium’s colonial rule, have been vandalized and a petition has demanded that Belgium remove all of his statues.

Last year, the Belgian government apologized for the state’s role in taking thousands of babies from their African mothers. And for the first time in the country’s history, a reigning king expressed regret Tuesday for the violence carried out by the former colonial power. In a letter to Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, Belgium’s King Philippe conveyed his “deepest regrets” for the “acts of violence and cruelty” and “suffering and humiliation” inflicted on Belgian Congo.

Bitu Bingi, Tavares Mujinga and the three other women now live in Belgium and France after emigrating from Congo and have requested compensation of 50,000 euros ($55,000) each but are are also seeking broad reparations for all children seized from their mothers and placed in institutions during the colonial era.

“There were official documents from the administration, it’s a state crime that was organized by the Belgian colonial administration,” said Christophe Marchand, a lawyer representing the women. Tavares Mujinga said she was taken away from her family while her father, a Portuguese man who worked in the cotton industry, had left the country for a holiday. Bitu Bingi's father worked for the Belgian administration.

According to legal documents, in all five cases the fathers did not exercise parental authority and the Belgian administration threatened the children’s Congolese families with reprisals if they refused to let them go.

Time has passed since the five women were forced to cut ties with their relatives, but the trauma they went through has never been fully addressed, and their pain remains immense. None of them have ever received psychological assistance.

“When we talk about it, we cry," Noelle Verbeeken, one of the five plaintiffs, told the AP on the outskirts of Brussels. “We have no identity. We don't know where we come from. ... We are nothing. Just the ‘children of sin,'" Verbeeken said, quoting the expression used to describe the children when they arrived at the religious mission in the Congolese town of Katende. There, Tavares Mujinga was reunited with her older brother, who had been seized a few years earlier.

The women lived in the mission with 20 other biracial children and Black orphans in very harsh conditions. Bitu Bingi recalls that food was scarce, and rare were the days when she could properly wash.

“We did not know how chicken tasted. And one of the doors of our dormitory was overlooking the morgue," she said. The girls did receive an education. Tavares Mujinga, who went on to marry a Belgian airplane pilot, became a primary teacher while Verbeeken studied Greek humanities and became a nurse.

“They wanted to make nuns out of us. We had other plans," Bitu Bingi said. The women's traumatic journey took a turn for the worse several months after independence, when they and the other children were abandoned by both the Belgian authorities and the Catholic Church. The nuns and other mission personnel were evacuated amid political upheaval and the children were left on their own.

“There was no room for us,” Bitu Bingi said, recalling mutilated bodies around the mission during the post-independence unrest. She doesn't dwell on the sexual abuse and rape by Congolese militia fighters after the nuns left that is described in the lawsuit, which says the militiamen sent to the abandoned mission to look after the young girls molested them instead. Bitu Bingi was only 11.

To this day, she says she can’t help but think of the militia trucks whenever she hears the sound of a truck engine. She found solace during a trip to South America decades later after finding out that her father had emigrated to Argentina to start a new life. She traveled there and finally met that branch of her family, a trip she said eased her suffering.

“My father was already dead, but I received a warm welcome," she said. Bitu Bingi and the women she calls “sisters” now hope their lawsuit will lead Belgium to finally recognize its responsibility in their suffering and in the pain of the thousands of other children who were snatched away.

“What we expect, and what they expect, is a reparation law, a strong decision,” said Jehosheba Bennett, another lawyer for the women. “Telling the stories of what happened during the colonization is really important, because now there is not much awareness about this.”

Belgian city removes bust of Congo colonizer Leopold II

June 30, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — A bust of former Belgian King Leopold II was taken off public display in the city of Ghent on Tuesday as Belgium marked the 60th anniversary of the end of its colonial rule in Congo. The removal of the monarch’s likeness took place only hours after Belgium’s King Philippe, in an unprecedented move, expressed his “deepest regrets” for the violence the one-time colonial power inflicted on Congo and its people during the late 19th century.

Leopold, who ruled Belgium during 1865-1909, plundered Congo as if it were his personal fiefdom, forcing many of its people into slavery to extract resources for his own profit. The early years after he laid claim to the African country are especially infamous for killings, forced labor and other forms of brutality that some experts estimate left as many as 10 million native people dead.

Belgium has long struggled to come to terms with its colonial past, instead focusing on the so-called positive aspects of the colonization. But the international protests against racism that followed the May 25 death of George Floyd in the United States have given a new momentum to activists fighting to have monuments to Leopold removed.

The Leopold statue in Ghent had been vandalized several times in the past and again after Floyd, a handcuffed black man, died after a white police officer knelt on his neck. Following a short ceremony punctuated by readings, the monarch’s bust was attached to a crane with a strap and taken away from the small park where it stood amid applause.

After his claimed ownership of Congo ended in 1908, Leopold handed it over to the Belgian state, which continued to rule over the colony 75 times Belgium’s size until the African nation became independent in 1960.

In a letter to Congolese President Felix Tshisekedi, King Philippe stopped short of issuing a formal apology but conveyed his “deepest regrets” for the “acts of violence and cruelty” and the “suffering and humiliation” inflicted on Belgian Congo.

Philippe stressed the “common achievements” reached by Belgium and its former colony, but also the painful episodes of their unequal relationship. THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

BRUSSELS (AP) — For the first time in Belgium's history, a reigning king expressed his regret Tuesday for the violence carried out by the former colonial power when it ruled over what is now Congo. In a letter to the Congolese president, Felix Tshisekedi, Belgium's King Philippe stopped short of issuing a formal apology but conveyed his “deepest regrets” for the “acts of violence and cruelty” and the "suffering and humiliation" inflicted on Belgian Congo. The letter was published on the 60th anniversary of the African country’s independence.

“To further strengthen our ties and develop an even more fruitful friendship, we must be able to talk to each other about our long common history in all truth and serenity,” Philippe wrote. Philippe's letter was sent amid growing demands that Belgium reassess its colonial past and take responsibility for the atrocities committed by former King Leopold II. In the wake of the protests against racial inequality triggered by the May 25 death of George Floyd in the United States, several statues of Leopold, who is blamed for the deaths of millions of Africans during Belgium’s colonial rule, have been vandalized. A petition has called for Belgium to remove all statues of the former king.

A bust of Leopold II is expected to be taken down from display later Tuesday in the city of Ghent following a decision from local authorities. Earlier this month, regional authorities also promised history course reforms to better explain the true character of colonialism. The federal Parliament has decided that a commission would look into Belgium’s colonial past.

Belgium Prime minister Sophie Wilmes has called for “an in-depth" debate conducted “without taboo." “In 2020, we must be able to look at this shared past with lucidity and discernment,” she said on Tuesday. “Any work of truth and memory begins with the recognition of suffering. Acknowledging the suffering of the other.”

In his letter to Tshisekedi, Philippe stressed the “common achievements" reached by Belgium and its former colony, but also the painful episodes of their unequal relationship. “At the time of the independent State of the Congo, acts of violence and cruelty were committed that still weigh on our collective memory," Philippe wrote, referring to the period when the country was privately ruled by Leopold II from 1885 to 1908.

“The colonial period that followed also caused suffering and humiliation,” Philippe acknowledged. Leopold ruled Congo as a fiefdom, forcing many of its people into slavery to extract resources for his personal profit. His early rule, starting in 1885, was famous for its brutality, which some experts say left as many as 10 million people dead.

After his ownership of Congo ended in 1908, he handed the central African country over to the Belgian state, which continued to rule over an area 75 times its size until the African nation became independent in 1960.

“I want to express my most deepest regrets for these wounds of the past, the pain of which is today revived by discrimination that is all too present in our societies," the king wrote, insisting that he is determined to keep “fighting all forms of racism."

Philippe also congratulated President Tshisekedi on the anniversary of the country's independence, ruing that he was not able to attend the celebrations to which he had been invited due to the coronavirus pandemic.

In Belgian town, monuments expose a troubled colonial legacy

June 27, 2020

HALLE, Belgium (AP) — For a long time, few people in the small Belgian town of Halle paid much attention to the monuments. They were just fixtures in a local park, tributes to great men of the past. But these are very different times, and yesterday’s heroes can be today’s racist villains.

And so it was that three weeks ago, a bust of Leopold II, the Belgian king who has been held responsible for the deaths of millions of Congolese, was spattered in red paint, labeled “Murderer,” and later knocked off its pedestal.

Nearby, a pale sandstone statue formally known as the “Monument to the Colonial Pioneers” has stood for 93 years. It depicts a naked Congolese boy offering a bowl of fruit in gratitude to Lt. Gen. Baron Alphonse Jacques de Dixmude, a Belgian soldier accused of atrocities in Africa.

These monuments, and others across Europe, are coming under scrutiny as never before, no longer a collective blind spot on the moral conscience of the public. Protests sweeping the world that followed the death of George Floyd, a Black man killed last month by Minneapolis police, are focusing attention on Europe’s colonial past and racism of the present.

Eric Baranyanka, a 60-year-old musician who came to Halle as a refugee from Belgium's African colony of Burundi when was 3, said he has always found the statue of Jacques “humiliating.” “I had this pride being who I was. It was in complete contradiction with that statue,” he said.

But Halle Mayor Marc Snoeck appears to be more representative of his citizenry. He said he “never really noticed” the monuments until an anti-colonial group raised awareness of them a dozen years ago in the town of 40,000 people about 15 kilometers (10 miles) south of Brussels.

“I’m part of an older generation and I heard precious little during my studies about colonialism, the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo,” said the 66-year-old Snoeck, noting he was taught about how Europeans brought civilization, not exploitation and death, to the heart of Africa.

Statues of Leopold, who reigned from 1865 to 1909, have been defaced in a half-dozen cities, including Antwerp, where one was burned and had to be removed for repairs. It's unclear if it will ever come back.

But Leopold is hardly the only focus. Snoeck found it remarkable that protesters have not targeted the statue of Jacques, which he called “possibly even worse.” The mayor said the statue is known locally as “The White Negro,” because of the hue of the sandstone depicting the Congolese youth offering the fruit to the colonial-era Belgian who condoned or was responsible for murders, rapes and maiming workers in the Congo Free State.

Baranyanka was lovingly raised by a white foster family in Halle and said he never experienced prejudice until after he had been in Belgium for about a decade. His 98-year-old foster mother Emma Monsaert recalls others in town asking her if she was really going to take in a Black youth in the 1960s: “I said, ‘Why not, it is a child after all.’”

But at school, Baranyanka found out how others felt about race. One teacher poured salt on his head, he recalled, saying it would make it whiter. When he wanted a part in a school play of the 17th century fairy tale “Puss in Boots,” he was denied a role, with a teacher telling him: “Mr. Baranyanka, in those days there were no Blacks in Europe.”

He counts himself lucky to have had a close circle of friends that survives to this day. As a teenager, he often talked to them about the monuments, his African roots and Leopold’s legacy. “They understood, and they were grateful I explained it,” he said.

On Tuesday, Congo celebrates 60 years of independence from Belgium. The city of Ghent will remove a statue of Leopold to mark the anniversary and perhaps take a healing step forward. Eunice Yahuma, a local leader of a group called Belgian Youth Against Racism and the youth division of the Christian Democrats, knows about Belgium’s troubled history.

“Many people don’t know the story, because it is not being told. Somehow they know, ‘Let’s not discuss this, because it is grim history,’” said Yahuma, who has Congolese roots. “It is only now that we have this debate that people start looking into this.”

The spirit of the times is different, she said. "Black people used to be less vocal. They felt the pain, but they didn’t discuss it. Now, youth is very outspoken and we give our opinion,” Yahuma added.

History teachers like 24-year-old Andries Devogel are trying to infuse their lessons with the context of colonialism. “Within the next decade, they will be expecting us to stress the impact of colonialism on current-day society, that colonialism and racism are inextricably linked,” Devogel said. “Is contemporary racism not the consequence of a colonial vision? How can you exploit a people if you are not convinced of their second-class status?”

The colonial era brought riches to Belgium, and the city of Halle benefited, building a rail yard that brought jobs. Native son Franz Colruyt started a business that grew into the supermarket giant Colruyt Group with 30,000 employees — one of them Baranyanka's foster father.

Halle has escaped the violence seen in other cities from the protests, and officials would rather focus attention on its Gothic church, the Basilica of St. Martin, as well as its famous fields of bluebells and Geuze beer.

Baranyanka, who will soon stage a musical show of his life called “De Zwette,“ — ”The Black One,” returned recently to the park and the monuments. Despite the hostility and humiliation he felt as a youngster, he didn’t consider their destruction as the way to go.

“Vandalism produces nothing, perhaps only the opposite effect. And you see that suddenly such racism surges again,” he said. “It breeds polarization again. This thing of ‘us against them.’” Devogel, the teacher, says it is the task of education “to let kids get in touch with history.”

"Otherwise, it will remain a copper bust without meaning,” he said of the Leopold II monument. “And you will never realize why, for all these people, it is so deeply insulting.”

Mixed-race women sue Belgium for crimes against humanity

June 26, 2020

BRUSSELS (AP) — Five mixed-race women born in Congo when the country was under Belgian rule who were taken away from their Black mothers have filed a lawsuit for crimes against humanity targeting the Belgian state.

With their claim, they hope Belgium will finally recognize its responsibility in the suffering endured by the thousands of mixed-race children, known as “métis,″ who were snatched away from families and placed in religious institutions and homes.

“This systematic policy of racially motivated abduction is a crime against humanity,” Michele Hirsch, a lawyer for the women, told The Associated Press on Friday. “It is not enough to say: ‘We apologize.’ Reality has to be taken into account. Their lives have been shattered."

Last year, Belgium’s then-prime minister, Charles Michel, apologised to the métis children who were kidnapped toward the end of the colonization period in the 1940s and 1950s. The five women, all born between 1945 and 1950, filed their lawsuit as the Democratic Republic of Congo prepares to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the country’s independence amid growing demands that Belgium reassess its colonial past. In the wake of the protests against racial inequality in the United States, several statues of King Leopold II, who is blamed for the deaths of millions of Africans during Belgium’s colonial rule, have been sprayed with paint, while a petition called for the country to remove all statues of the former king.

Hirsch said the five women — four who now live in Belgium and one in France — were aged between 2 and 4 when they were taken away at the request of the Belgian colonial administration, in cooperation with the local Catholic church authorities.

“Their fathers were white and did not legally recognize their child,” Hirsch said. According to the legal documents, in all five cases the fathers did not exercise parental authority and the Belgian administration threatened the children’s Congolese families with reprisals if they refused to let them go.

The children were placed at a religious mission in Katende, in the province of Kasai, with the Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul. There, they lived with some 20 other mixed-race girls and Indigenous orphans in very hard conditions.

“They arrived without clothes or shoes, having lost all their affective bonds,” Hirsch said. “Some children were allowed to go to school, but they also needed to work.” According to the lawyer, the Belgian state’s strategy aimed at preventing interracial unions and isolating métis children, known as the “children of shame,” to make sure they would not claim a link with Belgium later in their lives.

After independence, the legal documents claim that the children were left abandoned by both the State and the Church, and that some of them were sexually molested by militia fighters. The women have requested compensation of 50,000 euros each.

“This is not for the money,” Hirsch said. “We want a law that can apply to all so that the Belgian State recognizes the crimes committed and the suffering endured by métis children.”

Belgium votes on recognizing State of Palestine, imposing sanctions on Israel

June 25, 2020

The Belgian Chamber of Representatives will today be voting on whether to “formally recognize the State of Palestine.”

The resolution, said Socialist MP Malik Ban Achour, urges the federal government “to formally recognize the State of Palestine alongside the State of Israel and to consider this recognition as a contribution by Belgium to the solution based on the coexistence of two democratic and independent states having the right to live in peace and security with mutually recognized, accepted and respected borders. ”

The 150-member House of Representatives will also debate a second resolution calling for the government to prepare a list of ‘’counter-measures’’ to be implemented if the Israeli annexation plan goes ahead on 1 July.

MPs from left-wing parties, including the Socialist Party and members of the French and Green parties, proposed the resolutions.

Earlier this week, more than 1,000 members of parliament from across Europe signed a letter warning Israel against annexing parts of the occupied West Bank.

The legislators said they “share serious concerns about President Trump’s plan for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the imminent prospect of Israeli annexation of West Bank territory.”

According to private daily Al-Bawaba, the resolution supporting EU punitive measures against Israel passed in a committee earlier this month with an easy majority and is likely to pass in the plenary.

However, the measure to recognize a Palestinian state passed by one vote in the Foreign Affairs Committee and is considered less likely to be approved by the plenary.

Sweden became the first EU member to officially recognize Palestine in 2014, though other parliaments have since called on their governments to do so.

Source: Middle East Monitor.
Link: https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20200625-belgium-votes-on-recognising-state-of-palestine-imposing-sanctions-on-israel/.

Bunnies to the rescue as virus hits Belgian chocolatiers

April 10, 2020

SINT-PIETERS BRUGGE, Belgium (AP) — Master chocolatier Dominique Persoone stood forlorn on his huge workfloor, a faint smell of cocoa lingering amid the idle machinery — in a mere memory of better times.

Easter Sunday is normally the most important date on the chocolate makers' calendar. But the coronavirus pandemic, with its lockdowns and social distancing, has struck a hard blow to the 5-billion-euro ($5.5-billion) industry that's one of Belgium's most emblematic.

“It's going to be a disaster," Persoone told The Associated Press through a medical mask. He closed his shops as a precautionary measure weeks ago, and says “a lot” of Belgium's hundreds of chocolate-makers, from multinationals to village outlets, will face financial ruin.

For the coronavirus to hit is one thing, but to do it at Easter — when chocolate bunnies and eggs are seemingly everywhere — doubles the damage. Yet amid the general gloom Belgians are allowing themselves some levity for the long Easter weekend.

Some producers, like Persoone's famed The Chocolate Line, offer Easter eggs or bunnies in medical masks, while the country’s top virologist has jokingly granted a lockdown pass to the “essential” furry workers traditionally supposed to bring kids their Easter eggs.

For young and old here, Easter Sunday usually means egg hunts in gardens and parks, sticky brown fingers, the satisfying crack of an amputated chocolate rabbit’s ear before it disappears into a rapt child’s mouth.

“People love their chocolates, the Easter eggs, the filled eggs, the little figures we make,” said chocolatier Marleen Van Volsem in her Praleen shop in Halle, south of Brussels. “This is really something very big for us.”

The country has an annual per capita chocolate consumption of six kilograms (over 13 pounds), much of it scoffed during the peak Easter period. “It is a really big season because if we don’t have this, then we won’t ... be OK for the year,” Van Volsem said.

Persoone makes about 20% of his annual turnover in the single Easter week. This year, reduced to web sales and pick-ups out of his facility in western Belgium while his luxury shops in tourist cities Bruges and Antwerp are closed? “2% maybe, if we are lucky — not even."

Guy Gallet, chief of Belgium’s chocolate federation, expects earnings to be greatly reduced across the board this year. He said companies that sell mainly through supermarkets are doing relatively well but firms depending on sales in tourist locations, restaurants or airport shops “are badly hit.”

Persoone has a firm local base of customers but knows how tourists affect the books of so many chocolatiers. “Of course, we won’t see Japanese people or Americans who come to Belgium for a holiday," he said. "I am afraid if we do not get tourists anymore it will be a disaster, even in the future.”

For most people, the coronavirus causes mild to moderate symptoms such as fever and cough. But for some, especially older adults and the infirm, it can cause pneumonia and in some cases death. The immediate challenge is to keep the Easter spirit — and the chocolatiers’ craft — alive in these trying times.

A big part is humor and the use of medical masks made of white chocolate is an obvious one. Persoone puts them on eggs. “It is laughing with a hard thing. And on the other hand, we still have to keep fun, no? It is important to laugh in life."

Genevieve Trepant of the Cocoatree chocolate shop in Lonzee, southeast of Brussels, couldn't agree more. And like Persoone, who donated sanitary gel no longer needed in his factory to a local hospital, Trepant also thought of the needy.

That’s how the Lapinou Solidaire and its partner the Lapinou Confine — the Caring Bunny and the Quarantined Bunny, both adorned with a white mask — were born. Customers are encouraged to gift Trepant’s 12-euro ($13) bunnies to local medical staff to show their support. Part of the proceeds go to charity.

One of the country's top coronavirus experts also knows the medical virtues of laughter. Professor Marc Van Ranst told Belgian children that their Easter treats weren't at risk. Tongue well in cheek, he told public broadcaster VRT that the government had deeply pondered the issue of delivery rabbits' movements in these dangerous times. The rabbits bring — Santa-like — eggs to the gardens of children, roving all over Belgium at a time when it is forbidden for the public at large.

“The decision was unanimous: it is an essential profession. Even the police have been informed that they should not obstruct the Easter bunny in its work,” he said. There was a proviso, though. “Rabbits will deliver to the homes of parents, not grandparents,” who are more at risk from COVID-19, Van Ranst said.

Belgian climate minister resigns after protest march scandal

February 05, 2019

BRUSSELS (AP) — A Belgian environment minister resigned Tuesday after claiming she had confirmation from state security services that massive climate demonstrations in recent weeks were staged as a plot against her.

Though regional environment minister Joke Schauvliege initially failed to step down after admitting she had no such information from intelligence officials, she resigned after talks with her party leadership.

"I said something that was not correct," Schauvliege said, but insisted it didn't amount to lying. The opposition said it was outrageous to lie and abuse the name of the state security organization for personal purposes and also said she sought to discredit a just cause that is widely shared in the nation.

"This way, it is tough to continue on as climate minister," she said at an emotional news conference. Over the past two months, tens of thousands of protesters have demonstrated across Belgium for better climate protections and have often targeted Schauvliege's policies, which they consider woefully insufficient.

At first she welcomed the marches, but over the weekend, she said "a lot of people in these marches don't realize that they are part of a system which is a setup." She added that "state security has told me about this."

In her apology, she said she overreacted because of social media criticism and lack of sleep. Anuna De Wever, the 17-year-old driving force behind the Thursday student protests that gathered up to 30,000 demonstrators, said she was dumbfounded when she heard it. "At first, I had to laugh really hard," she told VRT network, denying she was a pawn in a plot against anyone.

A new march of schoolchildren and students is set for Thursday. Two weeks ago, 70,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Brussels for the biggest march up to now. Schauvliege was the environment minister for northern Belgium's Flanders, the biggest, most populous and richest area of Belgium.

Belgian climate minister denounces protest marches as plot

February 05, 2019

BRUSSELS (AP) — A Belgian environment minister has been forced to climb down over accusations that the massive climate demonstrations in Belgium over the past weeks were a plot and that she had state security confirmation.

Though regional environment minister Joke Schauvliege said Tuesday she had no such information from state security services, she said she would not step down over her remarks. Over the past two months, tens of thousands of protesters have demonstrated across the country for better climate protections and have often targeted her policies.

At first she welcomed the marches but over the weekend, she said "a lot of people in these marches don't realize that they are part of a system which is a setup." She added that "state security has told me about this."

Some 70,000 Brussels protesters demand action on climate

January 27, 2019

BRUSSELS (AP) — At least 70,000 people braved cold and rain in Brussels on Sunday to demand the Belgian government and the European Union increase their efforts to fight climate change, the Belgian capital's fourth climate rally in two months to attract at least 10,000 participants.

The event was described as Belgium's biggest climate march ever, with police estimating slightly bigger crowds than a similar demonstration last month. Trains from across the nation were so clogged that thousands of people didn't make the march in time.

Some 35,000 students in Belgium skipped classes Thursday to take their demands for urgent action to prevent global warming to the streets. "Young people have set a good example," protester Henny Claassen said amid raised banners urging better renewable energy use and improved air quality. "This is for our children, for our grandchildren, and to send a message to politicians."

Even though the direct impact on Belgian politics was likely to be small since the country currently is led by a caretaker government, the demonstrations have pushed the issue of climate change up the agenda as parties prepare for national and European Union elections in May.

The march ended at the headquarters of the European Union. The 28-nation bloc has been at the vanguard of global efforts to counter climate change but still came in for the protesters' criticism. "Society as a whole could do a lot more because they're saying 'Yes, we're doing a lot,' but they're doing not that much. They could do a lot more," demonstrator Pieter Van Der Donckt said.

Citizen activism on climate change Sunday was not limited to Belgium. Thousands of people made human chains or held other climate events around France. In Paris, there was a debate inspired by a recent petition for legal action to force the government to set more ambitious goals for reducing carbon emissions that create global warming.

President Emmanuel Macron sees himself as a climate crusader, but suffered a serious setback when fuel tax increases meant to help wean France off fossil fuels backfired dramatically, unleashing the yellow vest protests now in their third month.

Associated Press writers Daniela Berretta in Brussels and Angela Charlton in Paris contributed to this report.

Belgian government on brink of collapse over migration

December 05, 2018

BRUSSELS (AP) — Belgium's center-right government is teetering on the brink of collapse after Prime Minister Charles Michel took the U.N. migration pact to parliament for approval against the wishes of the biggest coalition partner.

Michel told RTL network early Wednesday that "whoever makes the government collapse shows a lack of responsibility," clearly targeting the right-wing N-VA party, which is against approving the U.N. pact that Michel has already promised to sign next week in Marrakech, Morocco.

Parliament is expected to find a majority for the pact even without the N-VA but it is difficult to see how the government could stay together afterward. Michel pledged at United Nations headquarters in September that he would go to Marrakech to sign the deal designed to ensure more orderly migration.

Brussels highlights sun-splashed summer with flower carpet

August 16, 2018

BRUSSELS (AP) — Brussels is highlighting its sun-splashed summer with a Mexican-themed carpet of over half a million flowers on its historic Grand-Place. The UNESCO World Heritage site on Thursday opened up the cobblestones of its market square for a giant display of flowers depicting scenes and symbols from Guanajuato, a Mexican region with an exceptionally rich culture and flower tradition.

The city lays down such a flower carpet every two years but the extreme heat of this summer posed special challenges. Brussels Culture alderwoman Karine Lalieux says that beyond the traditional use of Belgian begonias, dahlias also were used "as this year was very, very hot."

The carpet, measuring 75 by 24 meters (246 by 79 feet), will be on view until Sunday.

Ethics dispute erupts in Belgium over euthanasia rules

February 16, 2018

A disputed case of euthanasia in Belgium, involving the death of a dementia patient who never formally asked to die, has again raised concerns about weak oversight in a country with some of the world's most liberal euthanasia laws.

The case is described in a letter provided to The Associated Press, written by a doctor who resigned from Belgium's euthanasia commission in protest over the group's actions on this and other cases. Some experts say the case as documented in the letter amounts to murder; the patient lacked the mental capacity to ask for euthanasia and the request for the bedridden patient to be killed came from family members. The co-chairs of the commission say the doctor mistakenly reported the death as euthanasia.

Although euthanasia has been legal in Belgium since 2002 and has overwhelming public support, critics have raised concerns in recent months about certain practices, including how quickly some doctors approve requests to die from psychiatric patients.

The AP revealed a rift last year between Dr. Willem Distelmans, co-chair of the euthanasia commission, and Dr. Lieve Thienpont, an advocate of euthanasia for the mentally ill. Distelmans suggested some of Thienpont's patients might have been killed without meeting all the legal requirements. Prompted by the AP's reporting, more than 360 doctors, academics and others have signed a petition calling for tighter controls on euthanasia for psychiatric patients.

Euthanasia — when doctors kill patients at their request — can be granted in Belgium to people with both physical and mental health illnesses. The condition does not need to be fatal, but suffering must be "unbearable and untreatable." It can only be performed if specific criteria are fulfilled, including a "voluntary, well-considered and repeated" request from the person.

But Belgium's euthanasia commission routinely violates the law, according to a September letter of resignation written by Dr. Ludo Vanopdenbosch, a neurologist, to senior party leaders in the Belgian Parliament who appoint members of the group.

The most striking example took place at a meeting in early September, Vanopdenbosch writes, when the group discussed the case of a patient with severe dementia, who also had Parkinson's disease. To demonstrate the patient's lack of competence, a video was played showing what Vanopdenbosch characterized as "a deeply demented patient."

The patient, whose identity was not disclosed, was euthanized at the family's request, according to Vanopdenbosch's letter. There was no record of any prior request for euthanasia from the patient. After hours of debate, the commission declined to refer the case to the public prosecutor to investigate if criminal charges were warranted.

Vanopdenbosch confirmed the letter was genuine but would not comment further about the specific case details. The two co-chairs of the euthanasia commission, Distelmans and Gilles Genicot, a lawyer, said the doctor treating the patient mistakenly called the procedure euthanasia, and that he should have called it palliative sedation instead. Palliative sedation is the process of drugging patients near the end of life to relieve symptoms, but it is not meant to end life.

"This was not a case of illegal euthanasia but rather a case of legitimate end-of-life decision improperly considered by the physician as euthanasia," Genicot and Distelmans said in an email. Vanopdenbosch, who is also a palliative care specialist, wrote that the doctor's intention was "to kill the patient" and that "the means of alleviating the patient's suffering was disproportionate."

Though no one outside the commission has access to the case's medical records — the group is not allowed by law to release that information — some critics were stunned by the details in Vanopdenbosch's letter.

"It's not euthanasia because the patient didn't ask, so it's the voluntary taking of a life," said Dr. An Haekens, psychiatric director at the Alexianen Psychiatric Hospital in Tienen, Belgium. "I don't know another word other than murder to describe this."

Kristof Van Assche, a professor of health law at the University of Antwerp, wrote in an email the commission itself wasn't breaking the law because the group is not required to refer a case unless two-thirds of the group agree — even if the case "blatantly disregards" criteria for euthanasia.

But without a request from the patient, the case "would normally constitute manslaughter or murder," he wrote. "The main question is why this case was not deemed sufficiently problematic" to prompt the commission to refer the case to prosecutors.

Vanopdenbosch, who in the letter called himself a "big believer" in euthanasia, cited other problems with the commission. He said that when he expressed concerns about potentially problematic cases, he was immediately "silenced" by others. And he added that because many of the doctors on the commission are leading euthanasia practitioners, they can protect each other from scrutiny, and act with "impunity."

Vanopdenbosch wrote that when cases of euthanasia are identified that don't meet the legal criteria, they are not forwarded to the public prosecutor's office as is required by law, but that the commission itself acts as the court.

In the 15 years since euthanasia was legalized in Belgium, more than 10,000 people have been euthanized, and just one of those cases has been referred to prosecutors. Genicot and Distelmans said the group thoroughly assesses every euthanasia case to be sure all legal conditions have been met.

"It can obviously occur that some debate emerges among members but our role is to make sure that the law is observed and certainly not to trespass it," they said. They said it was "absolutely false" that Vanopdenbosch had been muzzled and said they regretted his resignation.

Mike Corder in Amsterdam contributed to this report.

Catalan ex-leader to speak in Brussels as asylum rumors grow

October 31, 2017

BRUSSELS (AP) — Catalonia's ousted regional president will give a news conference in Brussels on Tuesday, European officials said, as speculation mounted that he might seek political asylum in Belgium and try to avoid possible prosecution in Spain for declaring Catalan independence.

Carles Puigdemont arrived in Brussels on Monday, the same day that Spanish prosecutors announced they were seeking rebellion, sedition and embezzlement charges against him and other Catalan officials.

Puigdemont is due to speak shortly at the Brussels Press Club, which is right next to the European Union's headquarters. He walked into the building past a few protesters with Spanish national flags and pro-unity signs, including ones that that said "Rule of Law" and "Not in my Name. Long live Spain."

Over the weekend, a Belgian government official said that it wouldn't be "unrealistic" for Puigdemont to request asylum. Spanish Foreign Minister Alfonso Dastis said that the central government in Madrid would be surprised if Puigdemont sought asylum in Belgium and were granted protection there.

Dastis told Spain's Cadena SER radio that there is a level of "reciprocal trust" about the rule of law among members of the European Union. "It would be surprising that he could receive the right to asylum under the current circumstances," Dastis said, adding that the acceptance of an asylum petition "would not be a situation of normality" in relations between the two countries.

Belgium allows asylum requests by citizens of other European Union nations, and in the past, some Basque separatists weren't extradited to Spain while they sought asylum, causing years of friction. Spain took control over prosperous northeastern Catalonia this weekend after Puigdemont led the regional parliament to proclaim a new republic on Friday. The Spanish government immediately sacked him and his Cabinet, dissolved the regional parliament and called a new Catalan election for Dec. 21.

Meanwhile, Spain's Supreme Court said Tuesday it will investigate six ex-members of the governing body of the now-dissolved Catalan parliament for possible charges of rebellion, sedition and embezzlement following the parliament's declaration of independence last week. The six include ex-speaker of the parliament Carme Forcadell, one of the leading activists of Catalonia's pro-independence movement for many years.

The ruling Tuesday came a day after Spain's chief prosecutor Jose Manuel Maza announced he was seeking charges. Rebellion, sedition and embezzlement charges carry maximum sentences of 30, 15 and six years in prison, respectively. Maza is also seeking similar charges against ousted regional leader Carles Puigdemont, and his No. 2, Oriol Junqueras.

One of the main separatist civil society groups of Catalonia, the National Catalan Assembly, said Tuesday it accepted the regional election, despite the fact it was called under the Spanish government's intervention.

The group, whose leader is in jail on provisional sedition charges, is not a political party but it has been the driving civic force behind the independence movement in recent years. It said grassroots organizations need to prepare a "joint strategy" ahead of the elections with the goal of "obtaining an uncontested victory that will ratify the Republic."

Meanwhile, some of the official websites of the Catalan government tied to the previous administration were down Tuesday, in a further sign of the takeover by central authorities.

Aritz Parra reported from Barcelona, Spain.