Belgian authorities kept eight people in custody on suspicion of helping to recruit fighters for a Turkish Kurd armed separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Twenty people were initially detained on Thursday after about 300 police raided 28 addresses across the country, including the offices of Kurdish television broadcaster ROJ as part of a three-year investigation into PKK activities.
 

Judges approved the continued detention of eight of those until court appearances due on Tuesday, a federal prosecutor said, declining to give further details.
 

Prosecutors said on Thursday their investigations had produced evidence that a large group of people in Belgium were involved in falsifying passports and financing to help recruitment for the PKK's armed activities.
 

The pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party, which says its Brussels base was searched on Thursday, denied any wrongdoing and said Belgium had acted on the orders of Turkey.
 

Broadcaster ROJ said the raids had been designed to sabotage its operations, with the seizure of 1.2 million euros ($1.6 million) worth of equipment. Its director said Turkish police were involved, a charge denied by the Belgian federal police.
 

Around 100 people gathered outside its sealed-off offices on Thursday afternoon to protest, some clashing with police.
 

Some 40,000 people, most of them Kurdish rebels, have been killed since the PKK launched its armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.
 

Source: Reuters