Talk:Crime in Belgium

message: This article was created as a result of Melodius's comments that a large section on this topic is irrelevant in the main Brussels article. 1652186 13:05, 9 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reason for creation 

message: This article is suspiciously close to the propaganda of a Flemish far-right political party, the Vlaams Blok, whose twin obsessions are presenting Brussels as a Flemish city conquered by francophones and as a hotbed of immigrant, preferably muslim, crime. I fail to see, e.g., why it should mention Muriel Degauque who has no link whatsoever with Brussels. Moreover, only crimes committed by non-whites are mentioned, but there is nothing about crimes committed by whites, about football hooliganism, far-right violence, and the like. IMO, there is nothing in this article that deserves to survive, although I have no problem with the existence of this article. The figures given here are higly suspect and their source is unknown. --Melodius 10:26, 11 May 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I understand you have some problems with the article, but not all content is mine. Facts that I included are well referenced. And, of course, please feel free to add POV balancing content.1652186 11:55, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

text: Pedophilia isn't a crime, which the article seems to think. Skinnyweed 00:29, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Isn`t it? What about Julie, Melissa, An, Eefje, Stacy and Nathalie, and all other victims of pedophiles? LHOON 06:16, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Offcourse the actions of pedophilia are a crime. That is not what skinnyweed is trying to say. He is simply saying that these people are not in there right minds (some may refer to it as being sick), so it does not reflect crime or crimerates in a country. And therefor irrelevant to the matter @ hand ([user:Halsbergio] 00:51, 04/04/2007)
The sequence of "facts" given at the botttom of the "ethnicity and violence" section which to me should even not be included in an encyclopaedia.  What about all the racist crimes (in the meaning of white people killing foreign people) we had here?  Only one is cited... On the opposite side, we have some crimes described in a "dramatic" way that makes the article sound like frustrated people wrote it (for example, "Murat Y"..., it really sounds like a DH or HLN article where they give the first name to avoid saying the guy is a turkish; pretty smart!).  Generally i think facts like that are not part of an encyclopaedic work;  it is just used to biaise the article and to convince the reader that foreign people are mean. 
On top the section "Results of all this" has nothing to see with the article; it is yet another fantasm of an obscure Vlaams Belanger who needs to feel comfortable with his/her ideology by writing stuff in wikipedia.  Can't you leave politics out of this for a while?
In "terrorism and crime", "the same boroughs that pose safety problems (e.g. Molenbeek, Schaerbeek,...)"... I must be dreaming!  Is that an assumption?  On what basis are some municipalities listed?  Personally I live in Schaerbeek and never had any safety problem.  What are the "three dots" for?
I'll be removing most of the content of this article soon because i cannot stand this.  I feel ashamed to be a Belgian when I read this article which has nothing to see with "Crime in Belgium". Julien Tuerlinckx 22:27, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

text: First of all, feel free to include any referenced racist attacks by whites. What is wrong with the DH or HLN (which, by the way, are Belgium's largest newspapers) way of mentioning a suspect's first name? Are you suggesting we should omit first names and ethnicity because otherwise, when it turns out that the perp is a foreigner, we are racists? Sounds like censorship to me... If you want to remov[e] most of the content of this article soon because i cannot stand this, you better have a good reason: removing content from Wikipedia is considered vandalism. You know, I'm ashamed to be a Belgian too, but for other reasons. 1652186 13:59, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I fully agree that this article focuses mainly on interracial tensions and that some more racist acts by whites could be included (though not that many as you seem to think). This is a result of the fact that this article was created in the wake of the Joe Van Holsbeeck murder, and was originally titled Safety in Brussels, where these issues are more prevalent. However, in my eyes, the solution is not to remove well referenced facts, but to include other more POV balancing and subject broadening content. 1652186 17:45, 14 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  NPOV 

message: The Dutch language reference are totally useless to most en.wikipedia users. They are nice and all, but should be found on a similar article on nl.wikipedia. We can't expect en.wikipedia visitors to find these useful. Please take the time to find more references in English. --moyogo 18:23, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I take it as a coincidence that this remark comes now that I have finally found an undisputable though Dutch reference for something that others have been contesting for months. If you check my edits, you will see that I try to include English language references whenever possible. However, this is quite difficult for subjects that aren't world news. I do not think that there is any objection againt including foreign language references to check a specific fact, if necessary a user can easily translate it online to verify. 1652186 18:48, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Undisputable, I don't know, what's the study HLN is refering to in ? It doesn't really help finding it. What's a reference if you can only find echos of it. --moyogo 19:15, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you claiming that the largest newspaper in Belgium is an unreliable source which is capable of spreading false information? I don't know their source either, if you want to write them a request, go ahead, but it has come far if we have to go look of references of references. 1652186 19:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

text: Yes, I am saying no entity in the press is foolproof. The press can say whatever they want, especially with figures and stats. If you disagree, that's another matter. The point is you have a reference in Dutch that people can translate to get pretty much exactly what is already in the article. I'm saying 2 things: 1. it would be nice to have English references, I'm not saying Dutch references are not references but they'd be better on nl.wikipedia. 2. it would be nice to have a track to go further than this paragraph in HLN. --moyogo 19:22, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree on both points, and if I see an opportunity I will pursue it, but currently this is all there is, and until then it is enough. 1652186 19:27, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dutch language references 

message: Over the last few days, I've done some serious editing/balancing to this article, which, in my mind, is still a piece of junk.
It is clear from the glaring ommisions in the article that the original author, User:1652186 did not have the intention to write an article about crime in Belgium, but that instead he was, and still is, using Wikipedia to promote a personal agenda. The attention devoted by the author to making sure that as many criminal acts as possible are linked to the North-African immigrant population, and to portraying Belgium as a singularly dangerous country, is completely disproportionate. He made no serious attempt to  discuss crime in general in Belgium. Glaring ommisions were, for example, the port of Antwerp as a hub for international drug traffic, Belgium as a center for the production of synhetic drugs, the recent boom in marihuana plantations, white-collar crime, and family murder drama's, to mention but a few. 
It is also clear that the relation between nationality/descent and crime in Belgium deserves some discussion: There needs to be a balanced overview of the positions on this issue. I think I have started to do this.
I would like to think that anybody who creates a Wikipedia article would at least take the responsibility to make sure that it is balanced. In fact, in reading the article, it should not be clear to the reader what the author's political motives are.
It is all good and well to claim that there are others who will edit this article and that anybody has a right to an opinion. 
I think that while this is certainly true, it misses an important point. User:1652186 devotes a lot of attention to making sure that nobody touches the slew of facts on this page about crimes committed by foreigners, while the most relevant facts already have their own page. It is clear, in my opinion, that this list could be summarized in a paragraph or two. On the other hand there is no attempt by user User:1652186 to correct any of the errors of ommission, or to provide a balanced point of view about ethicity and crime. I suggest that it is the responsibility of User:1652186, if he is to be taken seriously, to start working on making positive contributions to this article. I am very weary of censoring any facts. Instead, I suggest that User:1652186 does the necessary to summarize his contributions to reasonable proportions, and, if he feels up to it, provide us with some information on crime in Belgium in a neutral voice. 
--81.83.163.80 12:19, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I will respond by saying, once again, that it was never my intention to create an article on 'crime in Belgium'. This article was created in the wake of the Joe Van Holsbeeck murder, and was originally titled Safety in Brussels, discussing recent events in that city. It was not me who moved the page to an article about the general crime situation in the whole of Belgium. Therefore, while I fully agree that this article focuses mainly on interracial tensions and that some more racist acts by whites as well as non-racial related crimes could be included, I do not see this as my task. I however invite and encourage anybody to include other more POV balancing and subject broadening content. 1652186 13:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  An evaluation of this article after its two monhts of existence 

message: I put in some tags, for the same reasons as Talk:Crime_in_Belgium#Original_Research. --83.182.233.29 22:31, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Tags

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thread_title:  External links modified