Anti COVID restriction protests have erupted and quickly turned violent, with protesters throwing stones and fireworks at police.
The protest against tyrannical government mandates began peacefully as a few thousand protesters marched through the center of Brussels, Belgium. The protest then made its way into the neighborhood which hosts the headquarters of the European Union institutions, where it reached its end point.
In that area, a group of the protesters who were dressed in black hoods and chanting “liberte,” meaning “freedom,” began to throw rocks at the police, while others began to shoot fireworks at officers.
Protests over Covid restrictions in Brussels turn violent as demonstrators throw stones and fireworks at police pic.twitter.com/M0hVvrkXPa
— The Sun (@TheSun) December 6, 2021
The police responded to the violence by dousing the protesters with teargas and water cannons, according to footage of the incident and reporting from Reuters journalists who were present at the time.
Demonstrators were gathered to protest the rules that the Belgian government imposed in October that force people to show COVID passes to access bars and restaurants.
“I can’t bear discrimination in any form, and now there’s the vaccine pass which is discriminatory, sanctions for (unvaccinated) carers which are discriminatory too, there’s mandatory vaccination which is heading our way,” one protester, martial arts teacher Alain Sienaort, said. “That’s all discrimination, so we have to fight it. We don’t want a dictatorship.”
