Ramadan Rioting, Media Non-Reporting

From The Brussels Journal:

Last Sunday the Islamic holy month of Ramadan began. It lasts until 23 October. Many will remember last year’s ramadan riots, which set France and, to a lesser extent, parts of Belgium and Denmark, alight. Rioting went on for three weeks. Each night thousands of cars were set alight by immigrant youths, until the French and Belgian governments ordered the police to no longer divulge any information about the disturbances, after which the media stopped reporting, the youths lost interest and the number of nightly “carbecues” in France dropped to the “normal” level of about 50.

Now, as of Wednesday, Brussels has suffered 3 days of rioting:

It looks as if immigrants youths want to turn nightly rioting during the Islamic holy month of ramadan into an annual tradition. Around 8:30pm last night violence erupted again in Brussels, the capital of Europe. The riots centered on the Brussels Marollen quarter and the area near the Midi Train Station, where the international trains from London and Paris arrive. Youths threw stones at passing people and cars, windows of parked cars were smashed, bus shelters were demolished, cars were set ablaze, a youth club was arsoned and a shop was looted. Two molotov cocktails were thrown into St.Peter’s hospital, one of the main hospitals of central Brussels. The fire brigade was able to extinguish the fires at the hospital, but youths managed to steal the keys of the fire engine.

The current riots apparently were set off by the suspicious death of an inmate in the Vorst prison. Meanwhile, according to the article, France also is afraid of riots during Ramadan.
Another source of Belgian concern is that municipal elections will be held on October 8th, and they are expected to be won by an anti-immigrant "islamophobic" party with 38.6% of the vote, as opposed to 33% of the vote six years ago.

Snapped Shot, who is covering the story extensively, has noticed that the MSM is virtually ignoring the story--while Reuters has reported on it, none of the other wire services or major papers have.

Apparently the same policy of smothering the story that supposedly solved the problem last time by decreasing the level of 'interest' in the riots--is being used now. And the media, as always, can be expected to cooperate.

Technorati Tag: Ramadan and Belgium and France.