Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Murder Shocks Brussels While PM and Cardinal Blame Victims

The Brussels Journal reports:
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.”
No word yet from the gun banners about banning knives.