Iran angrily summons Belgium’s ambassador following Belgian court sentencing of Iranian diplomat to 20 years for bomb plot

By Christine Douglass-Williams

“Investigators say Assadi transported the explosives for the plot on a commercial flight to Austria from Iran, according to a document by Belgium’s federal prosecutor seen by Reuters news agency.” Assadi was formerly based in Vienna, and “was found guilty of planning to bomb a meeting of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in a Parisian suburb in 2018, but the attack was foiled by German, French, and Belgian police.”

Iran claims that the 20-year maximum sentence handed down to Assadi  violates “the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations – a treaty governing relations between states,” and the regime’s response was expectedly brazen:.......... 

Iran has no respect for international boundaries; its jihadist proxies are working in Western countries to expand the powers of the jihadist regime. The National Council of Resistance of Iran is a coalition that seeks to replace the Iranian regime. It is alarming that Iran exports its thugs to murder its opponents and then complains about violations of international law when justice is served against it. Belgium has no “obligations” to Iran, but to its own free society, security, and the rule of law..............To Read More....

UN: Belgium Must Apologize for Colonialism, Face Its Racism

Raf Casert, AP, February 11, 2019

BRUSSELS (AP) — Racial discrimination against Africans “is endemic” in Belgium’s institutions and the nation needs to apologize for the crimes committed during its colonization of Congo and make reparations, U.N. experts said Monday.

Belgium’s actions in Congo have long been criticized as one of the worst examples of colonial abuse. Writer Adam Hochschild alleged in his 1998 book “King Leopold’s Ghost” that Leopold reigned over the mass deaths of millions of Congolese.

“The root causes of present-day human rights violations lie in the lack of recognition of the true scope of the violence and injustice of colonization,” the U.N. Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent said in an interim report on Belgium.

King Leopold’s reign over Congo from 1885 to 1908 was notorious for its brutality. After Leopold handed over Congo to the Belgian state, the tiny nation continued to hold sway over an area 80 times its size half a world away until Congo became independent in 1960.

The UN group says racism in Belgium continues today............To Read More.....