Thursday, May 11, 2006

I have mentioned the newsletters that the Extreme Right of Antwerp regularly throw in our letterbox ... the ones with burning cars and 'Stop Immigratie' emblazoned on their coverpage.

It always takes a while to calm myself, and then a little more time to understand how their rhetoric that incites fear and hatred of 'the other' picked up 30% of the vote here in Antwerpen.

Racial violence has been on the increase in Belgium in recent weeks ... 4 African men beaten, a Moroccan man was found dead in the river here but today was the worst.

Expatica reports: Racism appears to be the motive of a street shooting in Antwerp in which a man shot and killed a black woman and a child on Thursday, the public prosecution office said.

A second woman, of Turkish origin, was critically injured in the shooting. A responding police officer shot and injured the fleeing culprit.

The woman who was killed was working as an au-pair. She was taking care of a Caucasian child, who was also killed in the shooting. Both died at the scene.

The arrested suspect was described by authorities as an 18-year-old skinhead with extreme-right sympathies.


Antwerp has it's very own version of the Extreme Right online ... Vlaams Belang .

1 comment:

awomynda said...

"They've won" said the 9 year old (born and raised in Brussels) daughter of an English friend once the family decided to move from a dutch speaking to a french speaking Brussels commune.

She was referring to the bullies from the Vlaams Belang who frequently march and shout their hateful messages in the Dilbeek weekend market.