Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Ethnic War in Brussels: Moroccans Attack "Whites"


On Friday evening (today), riots broke out in the streets of Brussels between Moroccan youths and supporters of football club RSC Anderlecht. On Thursday evening, a blog had called for attacks on the "white" supporters of the club, and "to burn pubs, houses and cars."

The official story is that the problems began last Sunday, after the Belgian Cup Final between RSC Anderlecht and AA Gent. RSC Anderlecht won the Cup, but after the match its supporters and Moroccan youths had clashed near the metro station of Sint-Guido nearby the Constant Vanden Stock Stadium where the match was played. Since then, the atmosphere had been tense in and around the Brussels borough of Anderlecht, but on Thursday a blog was created on Blogspot calling for attacks on the "white" supporters of the football club and to burn pubs, houses and cars.

There may be more to this story than the media are telling us. In a reaction to a blog posting by an Anderlecht supporter, who uses the nickname da reflect, provides a clue to the reason why riots between Moroccans and supporters of Anderlecht broke out on Sunday evening: Someone, using the name RSCA SpideY, asks whether today's riots have something to do with "that Moroccan guy who tried to rob an Anderlecht supporter on Sunday evening and was beaten up by other RSC Anderlecht supporters afterwards." There is no confirmation of this story in the mainstream media, but they are not citing any other reason why riots broke out on Sunday.

Another interesting aspect of the story is that there is no information about the author of the inciting blog. It seems remarkable that the Centre for Equal Opportunities and Opposition to Racism (CEOOR, a government body) has not yet commented on the case yet since the posting clearly must have been in violation with the Belgian anti-discrimination laws. According to the press, the word "white" was specifically mentioned in the posting. One would expect that the CEOOR would leave no stone unturned to find out who the author is and bring him to court. Others have received warrants, in a "knock on the door" fashion for articles that were far less offensive or explicit, as the readers of this website know. I could not find the address or a copy of the blog posting, so I assume it has already been removed from Blogspot's servers.

Source: Brusselsjournal

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