{"id":500,"date":"2026-02-09T07:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/500\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T07:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T07:57:11","slug":"six-stabbed-during-kurdish-rally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/500\/","title":{"rendered":"Six stabbed during Kurdish rally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Six people were stabbed during a Kurdish demonstration near Opera Square in Antwerp, Belgium<\/a>, on Thursday night, according to Antwerp-based Dutch-language newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws.<\/p>\n

Four of the injured were found at Opera Square itself,\u00a0Het Laatste Nieuws\u00a0reported, while two others were discovered on nearby streets before being evacuated to the hospital for medical treatement.<\/p>\n

“Two of the victims are in critical condition,” Antwerp<\/a> Police Spokesperson Wouter Bruyns was quoted as saying, noting that four suspects had been arrested.<\/p>\n

Antwerp police believe that the attackers snuck into the crowd before attacking, Het Laatste Nieuws reported, and the\u00a0public prosecutor’s office has requested the suspects be charged with attempted murder.<\/p>\n

The demonstration was organized by the Belgian Kurdistan Communities Democratic Council (NAV-BEL) in support of Kurds in Syria<\/a>‘s Rojava region, who, according to Het Laatste Nieuws, called the attack “terror-motivated” in a late Thursday statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“It was a good, normal protest without incidents or problems,” NAV-BEL was further quoted by Het Laatste Nieuws as saying. “Many families, women, young people, and children were present.”<\/p>\n

“This is no different from jihadists who specifically attack civilians in the streets, at Christmas markets, or other public places. The Belgian government must acknowledge that Kurds, even in Antwerp<\/a>, are victims of hate speech and racist and jihadist-inspired violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

An additional demonstration, scheduled for Friday, has reportedly been canceled out of respect for the victims.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Six people were stabbed during a Kurdish demonstration near Opera Square in Antwerp, Belgium, on Thursday night, according…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[6],"tags":[19,556,7,553,554,555],"class_list":["post-500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-antwerp","tag-antwerp","tag-attack","tag-belgium","tag-kurds","tag-police","tag-stabbing"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}