Thousands rally for anti-austerity protest in Brussels amid clashes

Belgian police respond to ‘troublemakers’ on sidelines of main rally with tear gas, water cannon and baton charges.Clashes have erupted near Brussels-central-station" class="entity-link entity-location" data-entity-id="215726" data-entity-type="location">Brussels Central station on the sidelines of a demonstration organised by the country’s socialist trade union against the federal government’s austerity plans.As thousands of protesters gathered at the station on Friday, a smaller group clashed with the police and threw wooden beams, glass bottles and rubbish bins, The Belgian Times reported.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemslist 1 of 3Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein faces police probe as protest tensions festerlist 2 of 3New York police push politician to ground during anti-ICE protestlist 3 of 3India’s Cockroach Party says members detained ahead of protestend of listPolice were deployed in large numbers around the stations as officers checked groups of young people not wearing trade union colours.Police said the main trade union rally went ahead peacefully but “groups of troublemakers were responsible for serious incidents before and after the march.”Riot police responded to those protesters with tear gas, water cannon and baton charges. Police said those who “cause the problems of public order are not linked” to the rally.Reporting from Brussels, Al Jazeera’s Rosie Birchard said damage was caused during Friday morning’s protests with an “acrid smell of burning in the air”, due to fires that were set and the tear gas.“Police [and] emergency services have been arriving, starting to disperse or clean up and then the protests flare up again. So the day is still early; often these things get worse in the evening in terms of the street violence,” Birchard explained.“There were some young people who came out, they say they were inspired by what they had seen in France in terms of school protests, and they also wanted to talk about the education environment they’re learning in,” she said, adding that the students felt that they were “not being listened to”.A protester gestures next to burning shared bikes during a labour union-based demonstration against the federal government’s budgetary measures near the Brussels South railway station in Brussels [AFP]The clashes came after a week of tension in the city of Liege after authorities banned gatherings as students clashed with police and vandalised shops. More than 200 people were arrested in Liege, and dozens of police were injured.