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Starting November 5, 2005, the French urban riots began to
spread to its neighboring country Belgium.Even though they are most likely isolated copycat
events, this may indicate that the same tensions that caused the
unrest in France do exist to some extent in Belgian cities.
On
November 5, at the
Madou metro station in Brussels, a train driver saw two North African
youths tampering with a gun.The police
were called to the scene, and when two officers confronted the
gunman, he turned the weapon towards them.The police then fired at him, non-critically injuring
the man.Both suspects were arrested, but
the alleged weapon was found to be a high quality
fake.[1617] This
incident was of course not directly related to the situation in
France, but it may have been the immediate cause for copycats to
start riots.The same day, a Molotov
cocktail was thrown into a trash can and a car was set on fire in
Liège.
On
November 6 police
were called when a man was found to be using a car as a public
restroom in Schaerbeek.Upon
arrival, the officers were confronted by a group of youths emerging
from a nearby cafe.During the fight that
followed, five officers were injured and two people
arrested.Alledgedly, the youths
threatened to "start riots like those in France" if the police
didn't leave.[1618]
The same
evening, five cars were torched in the vicinity of the Brussels
South international railway station in Saint-Gilles.There was no police intervention, no arrests and no
comments by the government "in order not to give publicity to the
events".[1619]
Tuesday,
November 7 five
more cars were torched in Saint-Gilles.Some more were overturned and Molotov cocktails were
thrown at the responding police.[1620] In both
Sint-Niklaas
and Dilbeek one car was
destroyed by fire.Especially the latter
is remarkable, as Dilbeek is a more rural, green community well
outside Brussels, inhabited by mostly richer people.Furthermore, in Liège there were some limited street riots, with
bus stops and windows being shattered, stones thrown at buses and
Molotov cocktails at the police.No
arrests were made in any of these locations.[1621][1622]
On
November 8, three
Belgian born left wing extremists apparantly took advantage of the
situation by throwing a Molotov cocktail at the Brugge office of the right wing
Vlaams
Belang political party, which asks for tighter immigration
laws.However, no damage was done, and
the assailants were arrested thanks to a witness.[1623] In the evening, a car was set on
fire in a 'sensible area' of Antwerpen, the first major incident in that
city.[1624] The suspects
were injured by their own device and arrested.Later that night, 14 other acts of car burning, Molotov
throwing and even setting fire to inhabited residences occured in
Antwerpen, different
parts of Brussels and
Gent.No other arrests were made.
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