Brussels (Brussels Morning) – PKK sympathizers launch attacks targeting the Turkish community in Belgium, prompting riots and assaults, raising concerns over ethnic tensions.
The Turkish community in Belgium was targeted by sympathizers of the PKK group over the weekend. Following incidents in Limburg province where pro-PKK crowds sought to prompt Turks in the region, new screams broke out in Liege overnight.
In Cheratte, a quarter of the town of Vise with a large Turkish population, the group’s backers launched several raids targeting a mosque and offices of Idealists’ Clubs, an association related to Türkiye’s Nationalist Movement Party (MHP). The group, composed of masked people, vocalised pro-PKK slogans and attacked homes, shops and cars of Turkish citizens in Charlotte. Eyewitnesses argued that the Belgian police did not intervene.
The riots followed further happenings outside the EU Parliament building in Brussels where some 150 PKK followers tried to force their way through police barricades. Police halted the crowd, which was planning to stride through a street where Türkiye’s Brussels embassy is located.
‘
PKK supporters sought to provoke the Turkish community in Belgium’s Limburg. Local police employed water cannons to control a dispute initiated by supporters of the group responsible for thousands of casualties in Türkiye. The group screamed provocative slogans as they were passing through a region heavily populated by residents of Turkish descent in the Heusden-Zolder district of Limburg, around the capital of Brussels. The crowd was returning from Nevruz celebrations and were holding “flags” of the PKK.
Enraged by the slogans, some Turks encountered the convoy. Police teams reached the scene, where some automobiles had been set on fire, forcing them to utilise water cannons to control the situation. Deputy Mayor Yasin Gül of Heusden-Zolder said that PKK sympathizers attacked a citizen of Turkish descent while vocalising provocative slogans. “We’ve been living here as Western European Turks for 60 years. We have never had such an incident in our municipality before,” Gül expressed. He stated nearly one-fourth of the municipality’s inhabitants are of Turkish descent. Local management had already taken precautions in reaction to reports that PKK sympathizers from neighbouring municipalities and countries were attending the Nevruz event, he added.
The incident also attracted a reaction from Türkiye. Zafer Sırakaya, deputy chair of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party), expressed Türkiye cannot remain quiet in the face of the heinous aggression in Limburg. Sırakaya called Aydın Kamalak who was wounded in the attack to extend his get-well-soon wishes and promised that they would closely follow the “judicial process regarding the sponsors of terrorism over this attack.” Sırakaya stated in a social media post that it was inappropriate that a person was barbarically struck in the heart of Europe just because of his ethnic origin.
“Türkiye and the AK Party will continue fighting to ensure clear-cut, international sanctions are imposed against those dirty networks feeding on racist, discriminating, anti-Muslim thoughts,” he stated.
Videos spreading on social media revealed flames rising from a tower housing “Ülkü Ocağı,” or the “Idealist Club,” after PKK backers hurled Molotov cocktails at the building. Photos on social media also revealed broken windows of a mosque attacked by the group.
Although it is identified as a violent group by the EU, the PKK finds support in European countries. The group’s followers are allowed to hold mass rallies in main European cities. The PKK has also employed the EU to bolster its financial resources and recruitment and as a haven for its administration. Last July, Zübeyir Aydar and Adem Uzun, two senior figures of the PKK, emerged at a rally of supporters of the group in Brussels.
