www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1130
Paul Belien on Mon, 2006-06-26 21:38 The Belgian state is no longer able to guarantee the security of its citizens. On Saturday afternoon Guido Demoor, a 54-year old Flemish train conductor on his way to work, was kicked to death by six "youths" on a crowded bus near Antwerp's Central Station.
Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17 years of age, in a crowded Brussels Central Station on 12 April. Guido Demoor, a father of two, intervened when six "youths" got on bus 23 in Antwerp and began to intimidate passengers. Demoor asked the "youths" to calm down, whereupon they turned on him, savagely beating and kicking the man. They then pulled the emergency brake and jumped from the bus leaving their victim to die.
reports tonight that a fourth suspect, believed to be the ringleader, fled into a shop as the police were poised to arrest him. He managed to escape from the shop when dozens of "youths" came to his rescue. Witnesses had described the culprits as immigrant youths of between 18 and 21 years of age. During the weekend the police had called for witnesses as only four people had come forward. The police offered the witnesses absolute confidentiality and promised not to reveal their identities. "Obviously people fear reprisals," Gazet van Antwerpen wrote today. Belgians do not have a constitutional or legal right to bear arms, not even purely defensive arms such as peppersprays. With the police and the government failing to protect law-abiding citizens the latter are, however, totally unprotected. Saturday's murder has shocked bus drivers and train conductors, but they stress that they are not in the least surprised. "You see what happens if you intervene," one of Guido Demoor's colleagues at Belgian Rail is quoted in the newspaper De Morgen today. "If Guido had not opened his mouth he would still be alive.
I was beaten up once and since then I have become very careful." Another colleague told the newspaper Het Nieuwsblad: "After the Van Holsbeeck murder some whined that no-one had intervened. After the assassination of Joe Van Holsbeeck Belgium's Cardinal Danneels had said that Joe was a victim of "the indifference in Belgian society" because no-one had come to his rescue when two youths stabbed him to death for not handing over his MP3 player.
The fact that he paid with his life does not mean that he acted wrongly." In contemporary Belgium it is heroic for an unarmed adult to tell immigrant youths to calm down. An Antwerp bus driver told De Morgen: "These youths can be very aggressive. Public transport passengers declared: "They call you names in a language you do not understand, shouting and abusing you. A train conductor told Het Nieuwsblad: "This incident happened on a bus, but it could also have happened on a train.
I have been eye to eye with aggressive pickpockets on many occasions. I am not sure that I would intervene if I witness an incident. The unrest among railroad employees after the Demoor murder is huge. Some want to go on strike to pressure the government to give them protection. The Independent Union of Train Personnel (OVS), however, has asked its members not to strike. "Laying down our work would only harm the passengers and make them the victims of incidents for which they are not to blame," OVS spokesman Hugo De Rycke said. He stressed, however, that the authorities have to do something. De Rycke explained that bus 23 on which Demoor was murdered is known to be dangerous.
However, the taxi service was abolished because it proved too expensive," he said. Problems occur not only in major Belgian cities, such as Antwerp and Brussels, but also in provincial towns, such as Sint-Niklaas. Last week bus drivers in Sint-Niklaas refused to drive out in protest against the aggressive behaviour of immigrant youths on the buses. In today's De Morgen drivers, who have all asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, relate experiences of "buses being demolished while en route" and of "youths harassing girls, who beg the driver to protect them." One of the drivers said: "If they refuse to buy a ticket I leave it. I do not want to be beaten up for one and a half euros." Another driver said: "Last week an old man was beaten up on my bus. The youths were angry because he did not put away his luggage fast enough. They hit him on the eye and threw the luggage on his lap.
Sometimes they pester and provoke you for a full forty minutes. I remain calm, but some of my colleagues are not able to do so and get into trouble. If I ever get into trouble, I will do as one colleague did recently. He left his vehicle at the bus station and got off, never to return to this job."
antibureaucratic I am not trying to insult you so much as enlighten you. I am merely trying to get you to refocus your attention to the Islamic religious right. Crititicizing any stand of Islam in any way felt too much like voicing racial or ethnic prejudice. Indeed, the Dutch (like Western eruopeans generally) viewed Islam less as a religion than as an expression of ethnic identity. While enthusiastically condemning Protestant fundamentalism-which hardly existed anymore in the once serverly Calvinist country-the Dutch couldn't bring themselves to breathe a negative word about Islamic fundamentalism." While Europe Slept Take from what you will, if anything at all. You are mistaken to believe that I am defending the Christian religious right because I am a Christian.
antibureaucratic, I'm a little puzzled by your answers to some people here... Speaking for myself, I'm certainly not "religious right". Don"t you think that, if our arguments "are all the same", it might be because they're... If I say the sun is bright, and a lot of other people say so, does that mean we belong to the same "sect" ? I know there are "more of us", that is, people who are ready to take some time to learn and inform themselves before trying to give lessons to others like you do. Well, as far as I can see, you were the one to write "Some of the ranting about muslims I hear reminds me of Nazis ranting about Jews and that scares me just as much as the Muslim Jihadists." I just wrote that, actually, from a muslim viewpoint, Jews and Christian are almost as bad, and are "in the same boat".
point taken, but now "truth" serum wants to have a go... Let me assume that truth cerum, mohumed al akbar and the lady's friend are all the same person, for their arguments are all the same. Let me, based on that assumption, further define who exactly from personal experience I mean when I say the "religious right". Lastly, you must bring the Jews into it when you talk about the muslims, mustn't you? Have you forgotten the fact that the Christian and the Jewish faiths are called, collectively Judeo-Christinity for good reason, they share the same book!
You appear unable to focus on 'content' and on specific points presented. But, I grant you, that you are very promiscuous with gratuitous insults, and you ARE able to focus on spelling errors (always a good indication of a small mind). Perhaps you may not fully comprehend why, but our discussion have come to an end.
as you equate hypocrites and the religious right/Christians as one and the same. Seemingly to you, no hypocritism is to be found in other faiths? I don't remember saying Muslims are animals, but they themselves certainly do like to equate infidels with animals as they do repeatedly calling Jews-apes and Christians-pigs.
I would like to know, honestly, whether she calls herself a Christian. I have nothing against the Religious Right, but there are many hypocrites who believe themselves to be pious Christians, and I honestly would like to know. If she is a heathen, then she has no fear of hell, so where does she get her morals from: such hatred. Why not move to America, as some have suggested, if they are all so violent. They breed so fast it will only be a matter of time before you are outnumbered, after all. I am not going to argue with someone like you if all you can do is call me names. Shall I call them back at you like a school child, you ignorant person, or are you an animal, as you refer to the muslims as. I repeat - you are part of the problem, and you are doing ...
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