Murder Shocks Brussels While PM and Cardinal Blame Victims


Joe Van Holsbeeck

Last Wednesday Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17 years of age, was murdered in Brussels Central Station. He was stabbed five times in the heart by North African youths. They demanded that he give them his MP3 player. When Joe refused he was savagely murdered. The atrocity happened during the evening rush hour on a crowded platform. Though there were hundreds of people on the platform, no-one interfered – perhaps because many people do not notice what is happening around them on a crowded, noisy and busy platform where passengers are rushing to catch their trains.

Joe’s murderers escaped and have not yet been traced. The murderers were filmed, however, by security cameras. Today, one week later, the Brussels police released the pictures. The police say they are looking for two youths aged between 16 and 18 years old. Joe’s murder has shocked the Belgians. For an entire week the police, the authorities and most of the media have tried to downplay the fact that the killers are Muslim youths. Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and Cardinal Godfried Danneels addressed the indignation, but gave it a spin of their own. How was it possible for such an atrocity to take place in a crowd with no-one interfering, they asked. Both Verhofstadt and Danneels said that Joe was a victim of “indifference in Belgian society.” “Where were you last Wednesday at 4 pm?!” the Cardinal asked the congration in Brussels Cathedral during his Easter sermon on Sunday. The Cardinal blamed the murder on the materialism and greed of Western society “where people get killed for an MP3 player.”

Belgian citizens realize, however, that the murder has nothing to do with “indifference in Belgian society,” but everything with a group of North African youths terrorizing Brussels and the “indifference” of the authorities to eradicate this scourge. Last January five Moroccan youths slit the throat of a 16 year old black boy and left him to bleed to death because he refused to buy a cell phone they had stolen. The murderers have not yet been found. Some Belgians doubt whether Joe’s murderers will ever be found, and if so, how long they will have to serve. In 1998 Patrick Mombaerts, a 32 year old electrician, was murdered by a Moroccan youth who was after his money. The murderer spent only seven months in jail because he was a minor at the time of the murder.


Cardinal Danneels

Cardinal Danneels’ disgraceful response, blaming Joe’s murder on the indifference and the materialism of the Belgians, is symptomatic for the attitude of the Belgian establishment, who invariably blame the crime on the victims rather than the criminals. Jean-Marie Dedecker, a senator for Verhofstadt’s Liberal Party, writes in an op-ed article today that the first thing the police officers who investigated the murder wanted to know was whether Joe had made “racist remarks” whilst refusing to hand over his MP3 player. In Belgium, the senator says,

 

you will sooner get punished for riding a bike without the lights on than for stealing a bike. [...] Policemen look the other way in order to avoid being accused of racism – because nothing is more detrimental to their career – and also to signal that they hold no prejudices. They behave in exactly the opposite way when they suspect decent citizens of some misdemeanour.

Equally harsh for Cardinal Danneels, one of the leftists amongst the “princes of the church,” was journalist Luc van Balberghe on his blog:

The cardinal did not condemn the culprits. He made no reference whatever to the policy makers who allowed things to get so bad. Instead, he launched an attack on the whole of society. A totally unjustified attack: that society is thoroughly fed up with the dominance of murdering, thieving and raping Vikings from North Africa, and is not responsible for it.

“Where were you on Wednesday at [4 o’ clock!]” the cardinal asked, pointing his aged finger in the air. I am not accountable to someone who has contributed absolutely nothing to our society, who has looked on and allowed his own church to disintegrate and thereby surrendered a considerable part of our culture, our rules and values. […]

Where was he himself, that Wednesday at [4 o’ clock]? Would he have pitched his lonely strength against a gang whose number increases exponentially at one whistle and who have no regard for a man’s life? Has he not seen the interviews with Magreb youths on TV? “Terrible? Well, people die every day…,” one of the vermin said on TV. You could see him think: another infidel dog less! […]

“Where was I, on Wednesday at [4 o’ clock]?” Well, here is my answer: it’s none of your business, old faggot! But I ask you the same question: where were you when the laws were passed that allowed the killing of innocent children (abortion) and the slaughtering of the terminally ill (euthanasia)?

Meanwhile, yesterday, a Belgian court sentenced Daniel Féret, the leader of the Belgian anti-immigrant party Front National, to 250 hours of public service “helping immigrants to integrate.” Féret, a 61 year old medical doctor and a member of the Brussels regional parliament, was found guilty of publishing racist pamphlets. He will face 10 months in jail if he does not accept the ruling. The Brussels Appeals Court has also barred him from standing for election for the next 10 years. The FN’s webmaster, Georges-Pierre Tonnelier, was fined and also banned from public office.

In 2003 the FN won 5.6% of the vote in Wallonia, the French-speaking southern part of Belgium. A recent poll indicates that it attracts 9.4% of potential Walloon voters today.

re; old faggot

I thought the reference was to an old dried up piece of wood. You mean there might be another meaning?

re: old faggot

I must say that given the context of the quote and being from the US, I mistakenly did not give much thought to linguistic differences. However in an effort to save my point, whether it be calling the Cardinal an old bundle of wood, an old meatball, or using an extremely derogatory term for a homosexual man, clergy should be treated with a certain level of deference. Thanks for alerting me to the difference though!

Respect for Church Hierarchy

While I enjoy reading the Brussels Journal, ocassionally I see things that give me pause. Case in point, the comment quoted "it's none of your business, old faggot!" I understand the indignation behind the statement, yet a certain amount of respect must be given to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Danneels is still a successor of the Apostles despite his leftist political views and detrimental social notions. You may not necessarily respect the person, but respect the office and refrain from reprinting such cheap language.

Faggots for tea

old faggot

A lot depends on whether the expression "old faggot" is being used by a speaker of American English or the proper British variety.

Bob Doney

Belgian reaction

One of the first things that the French-speaking radio said was that the murder was not a matter for debate between the mainstream political parties.  United in indifference.

stopping the stabbing?

there is no way anyone is going to step in and stop five knife weilding thugs from stabbing their victim. that only happens in the movies. what people do, in fact, is back up. society is a very fragile organism which appears, especially in europe, to be in the early throes of falling apart.

Belgians are not asleep:

they are frantically looking the other way, trying to dream up bogus explanations justifying the old mantra: the (so-called) victims/weak/powerless are always right. The others should feel guilty and certainly not indignified.

Why did no one help when the murder was occuring: because you should feel indignified to begin with. One is not allowed to feel that way, because you automatically are categorised as racist if you do. If the two attackers would have been white, the outcome would have been different. Others would have intervened.

How can one feel indignified anyway, if one is not allowed to feel proud of his own values.

"it’s none of your

"it’s none of your business, old faggot"

I love this line... It perfectly reflects my opinion about Danneels.

(And Paul must be thinking the same thing too...)

The question is why?

What is the motivation of the established powers (a Cardinal, the Belgian Prime Minister) to effectively sell-out their own people? What keeps them from feeling the same indignation that you are expressing on this site? What's their motivation for behaving this way?

A child sacrifice

Joe Van Holsbeeck's country's politicians, media people, and church leaders supported policies - mass immigration and "multiculturalism" - that led directly to his death.

That is one thing. The other is that they do not now reverse those policies but rather try to cover up what they've done. This 17 year-old boy was a child-sacrifice - a sacrifice on the altar of mass immigration and multiculturalism.

Cardinal Danneels evidently worships not God but Molech.

And they built the high places of Baal, which are in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire unto Molech; which I commanded them not, neither came it into my mind, that they should do this abomination.

Jeremiah, chapter 32

The right to bear arms

If Europeans (like Americans) would have a constitutional right to bear arms they would act less "indifferent" when witnessing a fellow citizen being robbed and murdered. But even possessing a pepper spray is forbidden in Belgium. Only the thugs are armed, while the police is nowhere to be seen.

The right to bear arms

While it is correct that Americans have the right, none of them would have been bearing those arms on a crowded subway platform in the middle of the day. Unfortunately there are too many examples of Americans behaving the same way - not jumping in to help a fellow citizen in danger.

Cuanto tiempo hace que tu

Cuanto tiempo hace que tu vives en los Estados Unidos? Porque hablas solamente espanol a tus hijos en el estado de Oregon. De qual nacionalidad eres? Tus palabras que los ciudadanos no se ayudaran victimos es posible la verdad en varias cuidades grandes pero en los estados rojos en donde que viven Gringos Verdaderos por lo general nunca pasa!

ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

right to bear arms

"While it is correct that Americans have the right, none of them would have been bearing those arms on a crowded subway platform in the middle of the day."

WRONG!! I am always armed.

re; right to bears arms

Considering there are 65 million registered handguns in the US, and an ungodly amount of unregistered ones, there would be a good chance that on any subway platform there would be at least one concealed handgun. Even in NY, which has very strict handgun control laws, someone would have had a gun, ie., Bernard Goetz comes to mind.
Only two states ban concealed weapons, 39 have shall issue provisions(which means unless the applicant is a felon or has mental problems any adult can apply for a concealed weapon permit). While 9 states have may issue provisons which are much more strict. At least one state, Texas. permits the gun to be worn openly.
As bit of trivia, when Florida allowed concealed weapons the criminals immediately started robbing foreign tourists on the way to Disney World. The criminals knew that the tourists would not be armed and thus were not willing to chance an encounter with an armed and probably sun-addled Floridian.

another observation

If the NMBS (=Belgian Rail) was a private company they would never allow for such a lack of basic security in the stations, the platforms or in the trains.