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- <text id=91TT1126>
- <title>
- May 27, 1991: World Notes:Belgium
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- May 27, 1991 Orlando
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 37
- World Notes
- BELGIUM
- Making Their Voices Heard
- </hdr><body>
- <p> When two Brussels police officers stopped a Moroccan
- motorcycle rider in an immigrant neighborhood for disturbing the
- peace last week, their action sparked the worst rioting the quiet
- capital has witnessed in years. The officers asked the rider to
- show some identification, and soon local Moroccans, who saw the
- incident as just the latest in a long campaign of police
- harassment, were throwing fire bombs and stones. By the next day
- hundreds of Arabs smashed windows at a nearby police station.
- Riots raged in immigrant neighborhoods for the three nights that
- followed, and though no fatal injuries were reported, the
- fighting got bloody. By week's end Belgian officials were
- calling for government programs to aid the foreign community.
- </p>
- <p> The city's immigrants, mainly Moroccans and Turks, make up
- a quarter of Brussels' 970,000 population. But many are poorly
- educated, unskilled laborers and quite a few are angry and
- frustrated teenagers. Vic Anciaux, the Secretary of State for
- Immigration, recommended that some $285 million be spent on
- education and urban development in an effort to improve the
- immigrants' lot. Nevertheless, it could be months before the
- money is actually spent.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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