Brussels: PKK threatens attacks Somebody claiming to be a member of the Kurdish separatist movement PKK threatened bomb attacks in Belgium. In a fax sent yesterday to BNP Paribas, he threatened attacks on various branches on the bank, the most important police building in Brussels and buildings of Turkish institutions in the capital.
Sweden: More Police with Foreign Background The Swedish Police’s attempts to recruit a more multicultural force have reached a breakthrough, news bureau TT reports. A full 27 percent of those beginning in the police academy this January were born outside of Sweden or have at least one parent who was. That is a huge leap compared to the country’s current police force, of which only 6.7 percent have a foreign background
Berlin: Arabs almost half of serial-offenders The typical serial offender is male, of Arab origin, and remains a criminal as an adult, this according to an interim report on the status of the implementation of the Berlin serial offenders concept, as reported by the Senator for Justice Gisela von der Aue (SPD) in parliament on Wednesday. The serial offender policy, with which Berlin set up a separate department in the prosecution, ends this month, and the senator decided to renew it April 1st.
France/Belgium: Women’s organizations want burka ban In Paris, sixty activists of Ni Putes ni Soumises made an early start on International Women’s Dyy by marching with liberty caps in the place de la République, and then symbolically covering the statue there with a giant burka (picture here), later removed by the police. They were protesting what they see as a delay in enacting the law against wearing the burka in public places
Belgium: Police suspect PKK ran training camps Twenty two people were detained in the Belgian raids. 14 have seen been freed, and the eight remaining put under arrest
Norway: Iraqis accuse Child Welfare Agency of racism Several weeks ago an Iraqi couple, Musheer Nadheer Mustafa (36) and Khalidah Yaseen Al-Khalidi (33), abducted their three children.
Liverpool: Police officers to protect hijab-girls on buses POLICE officers are being drafted on to Merseyside school buses to stop Muslim pupils being racially abused. The problems centre around verbal attacks on hijab- wearing girls at West Derby’s Holly Lodge Girls’ College.
Norway: After three weeks, woman’s body found Update on this story: Norway: Woman abducted Not really mentioned in the article, but I understand the 25 year old is Norwegian. There had been various theories during the past three weeks. One was that Faiza had ’set up’ her abduction.
Amsterdam: Moroccans burglarizing each other Moroccan residents of Amsterdam are increasingly breaking into each other's houses, for example to steal dowries. According to Joke Padmos, spokesperson of the Slotervaart district, this is really a new trend. “It's alarming how much the number of home burglaries is rising. Part of it is due to shops being better secured, but it also has to do here with the phenomenon of Moroccans breaking into each other's houses. They know, for example, that there was a wedding and go looking for the dowry.” According to Padmos, district mayor Marcouch has gotten letters from other parts of the country about this problem. Meanwhile, she says that things are going very well in the neighborhood when it comes to muggings and breaking into cars. “The number of muggings has been halved and breaking into cars has almost disappeared from the scene. But those house burglaries are therefore a problem and we'll now deal with that.” 1,400 families in Sloterparkwijk were provided with anti-burglary liquid, with lets them spray valuables with micro-dots of synthetic DNA. If the police locates the stolen goods, the microdots, which can be seen with a microscope, show who's the rightful owner
Norway: Muslims to demonstrate against '9/11 threat' In other news, police in Bodø in Norther Norway, removed a Muhammad cartoon sign Friday night ( picture here ). Police say they responded to the possible traffic hazard the sign, which was hung from a bridge above the busiest road in the city, could cause. Per Youssef Alsiddique, a Norwegian convert who spoke in the anti-Dagbladet demonstration in Oslo, says he's been harassed since hten. He doesn't intend to report them to the police, though, since he doesn't feel there's anything serious behind them