From the desk of The Brussels Journal on Wed, 2007-12-05 11:21
A quote from the French judge, Jean de Maillard (Vice-president of the Superior Court of Orléans, and a professor at the Institute of Political Science in Paris), 28 November 2007 [here is an English translation]:
"When two schools, a library, a police station, a garage and several other buildings on a list already forgotten are set on fire, not to mention dozens of vehicles each day, we are used to it. It has become almost a routine.
"However, the second night of Villiers-le-Bel marks an escalation that the media and the government would probably prefer to hush up, but which may be the start of a new stage: the use of firearms. In truth, the surprise is not that the rioters began to use them, but first, that they hadn't done it sooner [...] and second, that they are still confining themselves to hunting rifles and lead shot. The suburbs however have been armed for a long time with caches of quality war weapons, lethal weapons, against which the bullet-proof vests will be useless.
"In other words the situation is explosive in both meanings of the word. It seems that from one riot to the next the techniques harden, the methods become more professional and the police and gendarmes will soon have to confront, if they have not already, experts in urban guerilla warfare [...]
"I am convinced that up until now we have been lucky that the thugs and future murderers in the suburbs have not yet dared to use their fire power. I hope that the public authorities will become aware of the imminence of calamity and especially that they will finally seek solutions. I would not like to be in their shoes, for the margin of maneuverability, if there is one, will be very narrow. Yes, the perpetrators must be mercilessly punished. But repression, in the long term, solves nothing.
"And people must stop dreaming, those on the Left and the others: neighborhood police are not a panacea either. You cannot graft an ethnic police force ["police communautaire"] on a society that is this sick and torn apart, in which the members are in open rebellion against society. Police are a means, not a solution. Educators will not be useful either: you cannot cure cancer with a placebo. To shower the caids [a type of governorship, originally found in North Africa and Moorish Spain] with subsidies to buy armed peace will be the chosen way: it will provide only a short respite. Is there another solution? I don't know, and I am very happy not to be in government."
French bosses fear "civil war"
NY Daily News article on anniversary of Sean Bell's murder by NYPD
A year of pain for little girl Sean Bell barely got to know
BY NICOLE BODE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
Saturday, November 24th 2007, 2:25 PM
Anderson/News
Jada Bell, 4, with her mom, Nicole Paultre Bell, and sister, Jordyn, looking on, shows picture she drew of her father, Sean Bell.
Sean Bell
Sean Bell's eldest daughter leans over a piece of paper, her crayons churning out white, puffy clouds with her father floating among them.
In the year since her dad was shot down in a hail of 50 police bullets, 4-year-old Jada Bell has drawn countless portraits of her father in heaven, each of them a heartbreaking insight into a child's grief.
"She draws him just like he was in real life," said her mom, Nicole Paultre Bell. "Every day, we talk about him. I couldn't .really tell you how many times - at any time, she'll bring him up. She misses her dad a lot."
In one drawing, a smiling Bell stands alongside his family as if he were still alive. Other Crayola sketches show him floating in the sky, looking down on his family below.
The idyllic pictures help shield the kindergartner from her father's last moments - a chaotic shootout as he left his bachelor party at a Queens nightclub a year ago Sunday.
Bell was killed and his friends Trent Benefield, 24, and Joseph Guzman, 32, were wounded by NYPD officers who mistakenly believed they had a gun.
Three detectives indicted in the shooting - Michael Oliver, Gescard Isnora and Marc Cooper - are set to go on trial Feb. 4. Oliver and Isnora are charged with manslaughter; Cooper is charged with reckless endangerment.
Jada's dreamlike pictures also belie a deeper sadness that has cloaked Paultre Bell, 23; Jada, and 1-year-old Jordyn ever since Bell's death.
In school, Jada grows silent each time her teacher leads the class in sing-alongs about moms and dads - shrinking away as classmates pipe up about their parents, Paultre Bell found out at a recent parent-teacher conference.
"I had to tell her, just because you don't see Daddy every day doesn't mean that you don't have a father. You always have a father," Paultre Bell said. "He's watching out from up in the sky. You just can't see him."
On Father's Day, Jada's class painted little wooden jewelry boxes. She wrote on the back of hers, "I love you Daddy," and left it at Bell's grave.
The toll is harder to measure with little Jordyn - who's too young to remember or appear in many of the photos and home movies that Paultre Bell relies on to help Jordyn learn about her missing father.
"It's just hard knowing that she'll never know her father. She'll only know him from the home videos that I show her and the pictures," Paultre Bell said.
The grief underlies everything Paultre Bell has had to deal with in the past year - including the sudden transition to single motherhood and the highly contentious court case in which she has attended every hearing and spoken out publicly about each development.
"She knows nothing can bring Sean back. But she hopes that if justice is done, other families will not have to suffer the way hers has and continues to," said Paultre Bell's lawyer Sanford Rubenstein.
Bell's family and friends plan to hold a candlelight vigil in his memory from 11 tonight until 5 a.m. tomorrow on Liverpool St. between 94th and 95th Aves. in Jamaica, where the shooting erupted.
Paultre Bell has relied heavily on the support of her relatives and Bell's parents, William and Valerie Bell.
"I've seen them grow - that's the good thing," William Bell said. "You see a life grow before you, instead of \[being\] taken away.
Still, Paultre Bell struggles with the pain.
"I just keep asking myself, 'Why does it have to be my children? Why me? Why do we have to be the ones to go through this?' " she said. "I have to try to make it better for [them]. . . . I pray all the time, 'God give me the strength to get through this.' "
UK tightens racist immigration/labor policy
BBC -- UK bans non-EU unskilled workers
Unskilled workers from non-EU countries will be banned from taking jobs in the UK for the "foreseeable future", the government has said.
Foreign nationals who want to marry a British person and come to the UK may also have to sit an English test.
The moves come as ministers unveil details of their new points-based system for migrants.
About 12,000 unskilled migrants from non-EU countries in Africa, America and Asia came to work in the UK last year.
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith set out the proposals, which come into force in 100 days' time, in a speech at the London School of Economics.
She said that immigration policy should not just be about economics but should also take into account the wider impact on society.
Italian politician urges Nazi anti-immigrant policies
Italy: Local politician urges SS-style policies against immigrants
Treviso, 5 Dec. (AKI) - A local councillor in the northern city of Treviso has called for "10 immigrants to be punished for every crime against our citizens", reviving harrowing memories of a World War II Nazi atrocity in Italy.
During a council meeting earlier this week, Giorgio Bettio said: "With immigrants, we should use the same system the [Nazi] SS used, punish 10 of them for every crime committed against an Italian citizen."
Bettio was elected as a councillor for Italy's anti-immigrant Northern League, but the party says Bettio is no longer a member.
Politicians from across the political spectrum, commentators and representatives of Italy's Jewish community have condemned Bettio's remarks. The remarks evoked memories of the notorious 1944 Ardeatine Caves massacre in Rome when Adolf Hitler ordered 10 Italians to be killed for each of 33 German soldiers killed in a partisan attack.
Parliamentarians accused Betttio of fomenting racism and asked the Italian government to formally censure him. A leader of Rome's Jewish community, Riccardo Pacifici described Bettio's comments as "abhorrent."
Italy's social solidarity minister Paolo Ferrero attacked the Northern League saying Bettio's remarks had shown what the party "really thinks."
"Just as the Nazis used Jews as scapegoats for the social problems of the era, there are people in Italy today who are blaming immigrants for every ill, and exploiting social fears that have a thousand causes," said Ferrero.
Treviso's mayor, Gianpaolo Gobbo said Bettio's words had been an "an absurd provocation worthy of severe reproach."
Gobbo's comments followed a request from the Italian parliament's deputy speaker, centre-left MP Pierluigi Castagnetti to Northern League's leadership to condemn Bettio's comments.
Immigration is a major issue in Italy's northeastern Veneto region, where Treviso is located, and anti-foreigner sentiment has been increasing in Veneto and elsewhere, in response to growing immigration, much of it from eastern Europe.
Some 40 towns in Veneto have recently introduced measures to keep out poor, homeless or unemployed migrants. Foreigners may only apply for residency if they have a regular job, earn at least 5,000 euros per year, have "adequate" housing and are not "socially dangerous".
More widely, many Italians would like a crackdown on immigrants, which they blame for worrying increases in crime rates as well as unemployment.
The government last month issued a decree making it easier to expel immigrants deemed a threat to public safety.