Belgium: Harassed by cretins? Totally your fault!

In a video message published on YouTube on Thursday, the fundamentalist group Sharia4Belgium launched a virulent attack on the film school student Sofie Peeters. Ms Peeters hit the headlines last week with her documentary ‘Femme de la rue’ (Woman of the street). ‘Femme de la rue’ chronicles the sexism and sexual harassment faced by many women in certain areas of Brussels as they try and go about their daily business.

The film shows how Ms Peeters is harassed as she walks around the Annessens area of Brussels city centre, where she used to live.

The film caused an outcry and both the city authorities in Brussels and the Interior Minister Joëlle Milquet (Francophone Christian democrat) say that they will take measures to help tackle the issue.

In Thursday’s video message Sharia4Belgium said of Ms Peeters that “She walks the streets half-naked and dresses like a cheap prostitute. She has painted her face like a clown. She has done all this to attract the attention of men.”

The fundamentalist group believes that Ms Peeters provoked the men in the film.

“Why do you think that women go about scantily-clad and with painted faces? It’s to get reactions from men.”

flandersnews.be

The ‘men’ that your God allegedly made with brains, dignity and self-control?

Belgium: Islamic nutters disrupt conference

Butterflies and Wheels

Belgium: Family jailed for religiously-motivated murder

SMH

Would you kill this perfect stranger? What if she was your sister?

A Belgian court has sentenced four members of a Pakistani family to prison for the “honour killing” of their law student daughter and sister.

After pronouncing the family members guilty for the shooting death of Sadia Sheikh in October 2007, the jury sentenced father Tarik Mahmood Sheikh to 25 years behind bars, mother Zahida Parveen Sariya to 20 years, brother Mudusar to 15 and sister Sariya to five years…

Sadia Sheikh, who defied the family by living with a Belgian and refusing an arranged marriage, was shot dead when aged 20 on October 22, 2007.

Belgium: Sex abuse victims to sue the Vatican

SMH.

GHENT: Dozens of victims of a child sex scandal in the Belgian Catholic Church have announced they are taking legal action against the Holy See, the first such suit in Europe.

Lawyers and victims said a summons was on its way to the Vatican, as well as Belgian bishops, to appear before a Belgian civil court for failing to stop sexual abuse by priests and church workers for whom they were responsible.

But don’t expect to see Barmy Benny in the dock any time soon. My bet is for a healthy out-of-court settlement. Why, the Vatican might even have to sell a Titian or two.

Belgium: Weasel words from Catholic head

SMH.

BRUSSELS: The embattled head of Belgium’s Catholic church has defended his controversial remarks on AIDS, gays and paedophile priests, insisting that his words had been twisted.

Archbishop Andre-Joseph Leonard has been accused of homophobia and his spokesman abruptly resigned after the church leader described gay love as a travesty of nature and AIDS as ”a sort of intrinsic justice”.

He also sparked outrage last month when he implied that elderly priests who sexually abused children long ago should be spared.

But it’s all right, because he meant it in a good way…

Belgium: Church raided in child sex probe

SMH.

Police have raided the headquarters of the Belgian Catholic church following fresh accusations of child sex abuse involving priests.

The man who led Belgium’s Catholic church for two decades until the turn of the year, Godfried Danneels, was himself “escorted” to the site by investigators, private Flemish TV channel VTM reported.

What can one say but — “Godfrey Daniels!”

Belgium: Catholic bishop admits abuse of boy

SMH.

‘When I was still a simple priest and for a while when I began as a bishop, I sexually abused a young man in my close entourage,” Roger Vangheluwe said in a letter read out to reporters by a church official yesterday.