Protest Held in Brussels to Call for Release of Belgian Held in Iran

Protesters wear clothes reading 'Free Olivier' and holding placards reading 'The priority is the right of living for Olivier' (L) and 'Olivier is in danger, let's mobilize' (R) during a solidarity demonstration with Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele in Brussels on December 25, 2022. (Photo by François WALSCHAERTS / AFP)
Protesters wear clothes reading 'Free Olivier' and holding placards reading 'The priority is the right of living for Olivier' (L) and 'Olivier is in danger, let's mobilize' (R) during a solidarity demonstration with Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele in Brussels on December 25, 2022. (Photo by François WALSCHAERTS / AFP)
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Protest Held in Brussels to Call for Release of Belgian Held in Iran

Protesters wear clothes reading 'Free Olivier' and holding placards reading 'The priority is the right of living for Olivier' (L) and 'Olivier is in danger, let's mobilize' (R) during a solidarity demonstration with Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele in Brussels on December 25, 2022. (Photo by François WALSCHAERTS / AFP)
Protesters wear clothes reading 'Free Olivier' and holding placards reading 'The priority is the right of living for Olivier' (L) and 'Olivier is in danger, let's mobilize' (R) during a solidarity demonstration with Belgian aid worker Olivier Vandecasteele in Brussels on December 25, 2022. (Photo by François WALSCHAERTS / AFP)

Supporters of a Belgian aid worker being held in Iran staged a Christmas Day protest in Brussels to demand his immediate release, with a spokesman questioning why a prisoner swap treaty was stalled.

Around 50 people took part in the demonstration under constant rain in the center of the Belgian capital, brandishing pictures of the aid worker, Olivier Vandecasteele, AFP reported.

A spokesman for the campaign to free Vandecasteele, Olivier Van Steirtegem, said the gathering took place because "it's the first year that Olivier is marking Christmas as a hostage in Iran".

He said the situation was "unthinkable for his family," who did not even know where Vandecasteele was being detained.

Vandecasteele, 41, was seized in February and has since been held in conditions that Belgium's government has described as "inhumane".

Last week, Iran imposed a 28-year jail term on him, stirring an already bitter debate over a stymied prisoner exchange treaty.

The Belgian government subsequently urged all Belgians in Iran, including dual nationals, to leave the country over the risk that they could be arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned.

Belgium insists Vandecasteele is innocent and was being held as a hostage as Tehran attempts to force Brussels to release an Iranian agent convicted of terrorism.

Under a treaty Belgium and Iran signed earlier this year, Vandecasteele would have been eligible to be swapped for the Iranian Assadollah Assadi.

Assadi, an Iranian diplomat who was stationed in Austria, was arrested in 2018 after German, French and Belgian law enforcement foiled a plot to set off a bomb at a rally outside Paris by an Iranian exiled opposition group.

After three years in detention, he was sentenced last year in Belgium to 20 years in prison for terrorism.

But in early December, Belgium's constitutional court suspended the implementation of the prisoner swap treaty pending a final ruling on its legality within the next three months.

Van Steirtegem said the Belgian government believed the stalled treaty was "the only path" to getting Vandecasteele freed.

"The question is whether we can accept leaving a Belgian man to potentially die in Iranian jail. All that because we don't want to transfer a prisoner from here who has already served five years in prison."



Florida Hate Crimes Unit Probes Shooting of Two Israelis Thought to Be Palestinian 

Police block roads leading in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida, Oct. 31, 2017. (AP)
Police block roads leading in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida, Oct. 31, 2017. (AP)
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Florida Hate Crimes Unit Probes Shooting of Two Israelis Thought to Be Palestinian 

Police block roads leading in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida, Oct. 31, 2017. (AP)
Police block roads leading in the South Beach neighborhood of Miami Beach, Florida, Oct. 31, 2017. (AP)

Local prosecutors in Florida said on Tuesday their hate crimes unit was probing a shooting by a male suspect who, according to police, fired on two men he thought were Palestinians but turned out to be Israeli visitors.

The Miami-Dade state attorney's office said its hate crimes unit "reviews every criminal offense that has the potential of being motivated by hate."

Rights advocates note a rise in anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian and antisemitic hate since the start of US ally Israel's war in Gaza following an October 7, 2023, attack by Palestinian Hamas movement.

The website of Miami-Dade County Corrections says the suspect, 27-year-old Mordechai Brafman, was charged earlier with two counts of attempted murder and booked on Sunday for the shooting on Saturday.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava thanked prosecutors on X for "pursuing hate crimes charges."

Brafman, when interviewed by police, said that while he was driving his truck in Miami Beach, he saw two people he thought were Palestinians. He said that he then stopped, shot at and killed them, according to police.

However, the victims survived. One was shot in the shoulder and the other had a wounded forearm. They turned out to be Israelis and not Palestinians, police said.

Dustin Tischler, a lawyer for Brafman, told the Washington Post they were "fully cooperating with law enforcement" and "acknowledge the seriousness of the allegations." He added Brafman had been "experiencing a severe mental health crisis which caused him to be in fear for his life."

Other US incidents include the attempted drowning of a 3-year-old Palestinian American girl in Texas, the fatal stabbing of a 6-year-old Palestinian American boy in Illinois, the stabbing of a Palestinian American man in Texas, the beating of a Muslim man in New York, a violent mob attack on pro-Palestinian protesters in California and the shooting of three Palestinian American students in Vermont.

Incidents raising alarm over antisemitism include threats of violence against Jews at Cornell University that led to a conviction and sentencing, an unsuccessful plot to attack a New York Jewish center and physical assaults against a Jewish man in Michigan, a rabbi in Maryland and two Jewish students in Chicago.