Gus > Latin America is preparing to settle accounts with its white settler elite
Don't gloat, Belgium will have its day. Your turn will come. Don't think Belgians can get away with their racist behaviour forever -- while pointing the finger at others.
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>>Belgium
There were further attacks on Jews and Muslims. Detainees, many of them foreign nationals, allegedly suffered police brutality and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Reports of prison overcrowding continued, accompanied by a high suicide rate among prisoners. There was concern that aspects of the asylum determination process and related appeals procedures were not in line with international standards on the rights of asylum-seekers. The entry into force of legislation passed in 2003, establishing a guardianship service to protect the rights of unaccompanied foreign children, was widely welcomed, but the treatment of some such children continued to fall short of international standards. The government announced a national action plan running between the end of 2004 and 2007 to combat domestic violence against women, but there were fears that the plan was insufficiently funded. Trafficking in people, in particular women and girls for sexual purposes, continued to increase.
A report published in January by the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI)
said that Belgium had made progress but that a number of ECRI’s recommendations had “not, or not fully, been implemented.”
In July the UN Human Rights Committee expressed concerns relating to, among other things, reports of racist acts; police ill-treatment; failure to guarantee or fully respect the rights of asylum-seekers, unauthorized migrants, detainees, prisoners and the mentally ill; and insufficient assistance for victims of trafficking. It stated that changes to Belgium’s universal jurisdiction legislation introduced in 2003 had negative repercussions for victims of serious violations of international humanitarian law. It also expressed concern that the definition of “terrorism” in the Terrorist Offences Act of December 2003 was not fully in line with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
Racism and xenophobia in the community
There were numerous accounts of Jews, including children, suffering verbal insults, harassment and violent attacks. There were also racist incidents directed against Arabs and Muslims, including asylum-seekers.
In January ECRI called for “a more determined institutional reaction against the use of racist or xenophobic discourse in politics” and for “concerted efforts of Belgian society as a whole” to address “manifestations of anti-semitism and Islamophobia.”<< |
