Stories about Belgium

Why Rwanda Accuses France of Aiding 1994 Genocide

  7 April 2014

As Rwanda pays tribute to the victims of the genocide 20 years after the tragedy, President Kagame states again that France must “face up to the difficult truth” of its role in the 1994 genocide [fr]. As a result of this statement, France has pulled out of the commemorative events...

European Citizens Call for the Protection of Media Pluralism

  20 January 2014

“European institutions should safeguard the right to free, independent and pluralistic information”. The quote, from the Media Initiative website, summarizes the main idea behind a pan-European campaign that aims at urging the European Commission to draft a Directive to protect Media Pluralism and Press Freedom. The Media Initiative is running a European Citizens’ Initiative – a tool...

“Beyond Brazil”: European Journalists Wanted for Reporting Trips

  21 December 2013

Coolpolitics in Portugal announces [pt] an open call for European journalists who want to go on a reporting trip to Brazil in 2014. Twenty-one young reporters from Portugal, The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, United Kingdom and Bulgaria will be selected to take part of three different groups that will cover events in Brazil,...

Belgium FEMEN Leaves The International Movement

  11 September 2013

“We are announcing the closure of the branch FEMEN Belgium. We took this decision unanimously because of different views upon the internal organization of the international movement FEMEN. We have no regrets, we conducted our actions with sincerity. We will continue the fight, there is no question about that, but...

“I Know A Rapist”: The Blog that Won't Stay Silent

  7 September 2013

A Tumblr blog collects testimonies [fr] of people who know a sexual predator. The “About” page of the site states that the goal is to show that rapists are not just psychopaths who are statistical outliers but people we know (80% of rape victims knew their aggressors). One contributor recalls one...

Royal Abdications: Netherlands, Belgium, Will Spain be Next?

  8 July 2013

Abdications by two European kings within few months have unleashed in Spain speculations about a possible stepping down by king Juan Carlos in favour of his son Felipe. Meanwhile, Belgium is getting ready to receive a new king who is trutsted by few people.

Rwanda: NGO's Pursuit for Justice against Perpetrators of Genocide

  9 June 2013

Rwanda remembered the start of the genocide on April 7, as they have done every year since 1994. In the 19 years following the genocide, the hunt for the perpetrators of crimes against humanity has never ceased. In France, the Collective of Civil Plaintiffs for Rwanda (CPCR) is one of the organisations that fight against impunity. Its Chairman, Alain Gauthier, answered some questions by Global Voices author Abdoulaye Bah:

Parallels Between Religious and Copyright Wars

  24 January 2013

Rick Falkvinge, the founder of Pirate Party, reinterprets the wars of religion that devastated Western Europe in the XVI and XVII centuries in terms of the current struggle to control information through overbearing legislation related to copyright and freedom of expression: The religious wars were never about religion as such....

Belgium: Police Violence

  25 August 2012

Here is a video showing police in Brussels arresting a drunk man who was beating a woman, before they then start to beat him. A person in the neighborhood filmed the incident.

France: Stories of Everyday Sexism

  15 August 2012

After being harassed and insulted by men in the streets of Brussels, Belgian student Sofie Peeters made a hidden-camera film to denounce the male chauvinism experienced every day by unaccompanied women in the streets. Under the hashtag #harcelementderue (street harassment), French women are testifying to the verbal abuse and sexual harassment that they are subjected to in the streets.