Yesterday, Friday 5th December, Belgian police removed an Algerian man from an Air Algérie flight after he protested and other passengers protested in solidarity, reports TSA.

The man told fellow passengers that he was ill and did not want to return to Algeria. He added that he had been hit by the police. Some of the passengers shouted their support and demanded that he be taken off the flight. After some time the Belgian police decided to take the man off the plane.

Shortly afterwards the police returned to arrest a female passenger who they claimed was behind the protest.

The flight took off two hours later than scheduled.

Samiyou Djimadou, a 29 year old asylum seeker who arrived in Belgium in September 2012, committed suicide on Monday after fearing deportation to his country of origin, and possible torture and death, reports dhnet.be.

Asyluim claims in Belgium are supposed to be looked at within 6 months but after 10 months Samiyou’s claim had still not been examined.

A friend of Samiyou’s  told denet.be that Samiyou had been suffering from insomnia though fear of being detained and deported.

On Monday afternoon in Nerder-over-Heembeek in the north of Brussels, Samiyou decided to end his life. He firstly tried to throw himself under a lorry but the driver managed to avoid him, so he jumped into a canal next to the road.

On Wednesday 20th March people will gather at in front of the Palais de Justice in Brussels in solidarity with two No Border activists who are appealing agaionst convictions given to them last April.

The activists were arrested during the Brussels No Border camp (September-October 2010) and were charged with rebellion. In April 2012, in what the activists say was a politically-motivated trial, they were convicted to a one year and a six month suspended sentence respectively. They have therefore decided to appeal the verdict. The solidarity demonstration begins at 8.30am in front of the Paleis de Justice on Place Poelaert.

Since 6am this morning, around 50 activists have blockaded the entrance to a closed detention centre in Bruges. They are preventing any deportations from taking place and they say that they intend to stay as long as possible. Read the press release and updates here on Brussels Indymedia.

You can watch a YouTube video of the action here.

Yesterday activists protested at Zaventum airport near Brussels against the deportation of Fouad, a member of the Collectif Sans Papiers à Bruxelles. Thanks to this and Fouad’s resistance, the deportation attempt was unsucessful. Fouad remains in detention however.

Activists demanding that the French authorities open an enquiry into the suspicious death of a migrant in Calais occupied the scaffolding of the French Embassy in Brussels this morning (01/08/12). They held banners proclaiming ‘Justice for Noureddin’ and ‘Calais everywhere, justice nowhere’. There were 8 arrests but all were later released without charge. Watch a short video of the action here.

 This Sunday at 6.15pm Belgium is due to deport a number of Afghanis on a Turkish airlines flight from Zaventum airport to Istanbul.  Campaigners are calling for individuals, associations, journalists and politicians to gather at the airport at 4.15pm to speak to passengers and staff and try and stop the deportations.

Le Monde reports that yesterday, 10th April 2012, the Flemish seperatist far-right party Vlaams Belang published a website calling on people to inform the authorities about the ‘tens of thousands’ of undocumented people who they say are working on the black market, are involved in criminality and who fradulently claim state benefits.

The Director of the Centre pour l’égalité des chances et de lutte contre le racisme, Jozef De Witte, reacted strongly to this move on Radio 1, saying that this campaign is similar to those led by the Nazis and the Stasi. The European Commission also condemned the website, saying that such initiatives “do not correspond to the values which we defend“.