The Brussels Times's weekly image compilation is back, bringing you the five images that captured the Belgian news week from 26 February to 3 March.
This week provided us with a panoply of pictures from all over the country: the King of Belgium visiting Molenbeek, a NATO conference for Ukraine as well as renewed calls for the release of an imprisoned Belgian humanitarian aid worker in Iran.
Hadja's head in the skies
Credit: Benoit Doppagne/Belga.
Belgium's Foreign Affairs Minister Hadja Lahbib was at the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday. Here she is pictured at the opening of the Council's 52nd session. Towering above her is Miquel Barceló's famous ceiling which is one of the highlights of U.N.’s art-deco building near Lake Geneva.
Lahbib also spoke at the session, which was held in Geneva, where she condemned Russia's human rights violations in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
One-year on, still no release
Credit: Nicolas Maeterlinck/Belga.
Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of Olivier Vandecasteele's imprisonment in Iran. The Belgian aid worker is falsely accused by the Iranian State of being a spy, for which he was recently sentenced to forty years in prison.
A vigil was organised at Mont des Arts last weekend to demand that the Belgian Government ensure his release. Prime Minister Alexander De Croo heeded those calls to demand Vandecasteele's release during a phone call with the Iranian President.
Commemorative ceremony
Credit: NATO.
NATO also held a ceremony at their headquarters in Haren, on the outskirts of Brussels, to mark the one-year anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. This week, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told journalists on Tuesday that Ukraine will become a member of NATO, but in the ‘long-term’.
Recy-king
Credit: Eric Lalmand/Belga.
King Philippe paid a visit to the Recyclart site in Molenbeek-Saint-Jean on Thursday. The creative centre and nightclub provides a diversified artistic programme as well as leading socially-minded projects in Molenbeek.
Flowers and ribbons for Emilietta
Credit: Belga / Pino Misuraca
Last Wednesday, the 75-year-old Emilietta Chini went missing from her home in Eisden-Tuinwijk, Maasmechelen. She suffered from dementia.
Seven days later, her body was found in a nearby wood, with relatives wrapping yellow ribbons and flowers around the trees in her honour.
