80,000 people have taken part in a silent march in Brussels to protest over the murder of a teenager who refused to give thieves his MP3 player.
Joe Van Holsbeeck, 17, was with a friend at the busy central station when he was stabbed five times in the chest after refusing to hand over his digital music player to muggers.
The rush-hour death shocked Belgium.
The murdered boy’s parents held hands as they walked at the heart of the procession. They had requested a silent march without banners or signs of political affiliation.
Fears of racial tension have been high as the killers appear from the CCTV footage to be of North African origin but his mother appealed for calm.
“Don’t ask me to hate all Arabs,” she said in an interview with Belgian newspaper La Derniere Heure. “The youths that killed my son are thugs but don’t generalise.”
No comment.
Good to hear that Eastern Europeans are against murder.
You know, after that whole Yugoslavia thing and all…
Since when did Belgium become Eastern Europe?
Not to be an ass, but why didn’t he just give up the mp3 player? C’mon, no ipod is worth your life. And I’m not sure why they’re protesting. It isn’t like the government killed the kid.
What was the point of the march? To protest murder? To protest murder over an MP3 player? Are there really that few murders in Belgium?
And the fact that I ask these questions make me wonder how much Americans take murder for granted.
You know it might be about racial tensions and this episode just encapsulated all their resentments and frustrations.
Remember when we cared and just didn’t resign ourselves to shytholes for urban living?
I live in Belgium and took part in the ‘silent march’ in Brussels. I must say it was a heartwarming experience. So many people united in their dismay and disbelief that a young kid got killed over an iPod during rush hour…
People should never accept violence and I’m glad so many Belgians stood up for what they believe in and this in a respectful and serene manner.
To ‘Dan Ryan’: apparently the kid did give up his mp3 player but got stabbed 5 times afterwards!
Since it’s east of France, Ryan.
I consider France to be the heart of Europe. Why? Because in the heart of every European is a coward.
Since when is Belgium east of France?
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East of France we like to ROFL, especially at “heroic” morons believing in WMD in Iraq, “axis of evil”, and other scam.
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A difficult question. After 1991, maybe a year later or so, I presume. After the fall of the Soviet empire, all commies spread to Western Europe and gained power (as, for example, Dominique Villepin in France, c.f. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique_de_Villepin). Btw, he comes from Morocco, which is located (Middle) East of France, too.
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Not racial tensions. Just a little clash of cultures…
Belguim is a boring little country. These people thought it may liven up their day to march.
And my boring comment was not from arrogance, it was told to me by my Belgian friends.
Very few people in this country have a clue about the day to day tensions in places like Belguim and the Netherlands between the native populations and the Arab/Islamic population. When their economies were flying high they imported all these cheap workers(sound familier?) and now they make up almost a quarter of their total population. They are under housed, unemployed, and not well educated and angry. A disproportionat amount of crime is from these *non-natives* and native people feel threatened.
Look for more and more confrontations and eventually riots in the smaller, once *liberal* countries.
I think Dan Ryan is right – the Mp3 is not worth your life – isn’t that the first rule of getting mugged “Give them whatever they want and pray they don’t kill you” – to aTom, the article did say he refused to give it to them…
In minneapolis close to where i live, there was a kid who gave up his money and cell phone and everything else asked for to a couple of somalians, they turned, took a few steps, then turned around and shot him in the head in front of his wife and mother.
I felt like protesting.
Good to hear that Eastern Europeans are against murder.
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Since it’s east of France, Ryan.
Stupid is as stupid is.
And the fact that I ask these questions make me wonder how much Americans take murder for granted.
Yes, Americans are too inured to murder and violence. It is so commonplace that Americans only become interested if they know the victim. Maybe if we go back 50 years by re-reading Truman Capote’s book, In Cold Blood, we could feel the horror that comes with senseless violence.
#14….Mr. Old time……and you wonder why I favour vouchers…..lmao
Maybe a sort of premonition but the belgian police arrested the murderer: he is polish and his accomplice too !!!
Morale of the story: don’t jump to conclusions !
Alain
The problem is that these demonstrations impress the people that are marching in them, not the people that are commiting murder as a sport Showing reserve and respect after your neighbor has been killed may impress the marchers that they are sophisticated and rational. The murderers read this action as passive and weak. The Nepalese know what to do when Muslim savages kill their countrymen, they make sure the savages in their midst pay the price for their compatriots action. Islam is at war with non-Muslims. Some of them use violence to further the war and some just throw sand in the manchinery of Western civilization, they have the same goal in mind for each of us regardless of what tactic they use to reach that goal.
Okay, Tom…a heartwarming experience, united in your dismay and disbelief…people should never accept violence.
Well, you just had some unacceptable violence…now the question is… what are you going to do about it?
If you think for one minute that your collective heartwarming experience had any affect on these sociopaths, you are deluding yourself. And I’m not a racist, Islam is not a RACE!
Wake up Europe! Sometimes you have to get tough.