OMM Newsroom
Demonstrations in Brussels and Liege began peacefully on Saturday, but tensions later rose in the Belgian capital, where police used pepper spray and protesters built a barricade, Anadolu Agency reported, citing Belgian public broadcaster RTBF.
About 300 people gathered around noon at Mont des Arts in central Brussels after calls from several organizations, including Front des Meres, Ecole en Lutte and Jeunesse Organisee et Combative.
They denounced alleged police violence and reforms introduced by the federal government. The gathering had been authorized, but a spontaneous march toward the Marolles district and Brussels-South railway station had not.
At around 2 pm local time (1200 GMT), several young people crossed a police cordon. Officers deployed pepper spray on Chaussee de Forest in the Saint-Gilles district.
Near Porte de Hal, demonstrators assembled a barricade from shared electric scooters, bicycles, road signs and construction materials.
The developments followed several days of false calls for demonstrations circulating on “TikTok” and “Instagram”, accompanied by AI-generated posters.
Morning conditions remained calm at several locations named in the calls. As a precaution, some shops in central Brussels closed and boarded up their windows.
The situation in Liege remained calm.
