BELGIAN POLICE ARREST OVER 100 IN ANTI-KURD DEMO
Reuters, UK
Oct 25 2007
BRUSSELS, Oct 25 (Reuters) – Over 100 youths of Turkish origin were
arrested on Wednesday night in Brussels after clashing with Belgian
police during a banned anti-Kurdish demonstration, a local authority
spokesman said.
Tensions have been running high in some immigrant Turkish communities
in Belgium after 12 Turkish soldiers were killed earlier this month
in an attack by Kurdish PKK rebels based in northern Iraq.
Pierre Bruylandt, a spokesman for the mayor of Saint Josse-ten-Noode,
where the violence took place, said the youths were detained after
destroying cars, bus stops and garbage bins.
A number of the youths were armed with metal rods and had concealed
their faces with hoods and scarves, Bruylandt said, adding he had
witnessed the violence himself.
"They demonstrated following the clashes at the Turkish-Iraqi border,"
said Bruylandt. He said the demonstrators had no permit to hold
the protest.
Saint Josse-ten-Noode is a district of Brussels which is home to a
large Turkish community.
Turkey’s parliament has authorised the military to carry out a major
cross-border incursion against Kurdish militants after the surge in
guerrilla attacks on Turkish soil.
"This is exporting Turkey’s problems to Belgium… It is as if one
were demonstrating in favour of Belgian unity in Turkey," Bruylandt
commented.
Saint Josse-ten-Noode was also the scene recently of clashes between
the Turkish and Armenian communities after a committee of the U.S.
congress voted to call the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman
Turks genocide.