Gunman with a Grudge: Nordine Amrani

The Daily Telegraph reports that lawyers have come up with an explanation for Nordine Amrani's gun and grenade attack on Belgian shoppers in Liège yesterday: he held a "grudge against society".  He feared, apparently, going back to prison and felt that he had been "set up". Quite why a gun-toting, grenade-loving misogynist sex offender felt "set up" I shall leave the reader to speculate. According to the Telegraph, his lawyer, a certain Miss Amrani (although she shares his surname she is not a relative)

'dismissed any possible terrorist motives for the attack. "He did not feel at all Moroccan. He did not speak a word of Arabic and was not Muslim. What he said is that he felt a Belgian," she said. "He was crazy about weapons but as a collector. He felt he had not had much luck in life and felt unfairly treated by the courts. This was a 'ras-le-bol' of a tormented soul: estranged from justice, and against society."'

Well, if this Moroccan resident of Liege held a grudge against the Belgian legal system, which seemed after all to be only doing its job in calling him to report to a police station yesterday, why did he then purposefully target ordinary Belgians at, of all places, a Christmas market, before killing himself? Why did he first rape and then shoot a 45-year-old cleaner? Does not this suicide attack, which resulted in the killing of the innocent at this particular location at this time, possess a certain symbolic significance? According to blogger Klein Verzet, the attack could be linked to violent threats made on 13 December to a Belgian court which handed down sentences for a Muslim honour killing: four members of a Pakistani Muslim family - a father and his sons - were gaoled for killing daughter Sadia Sheikh in 2007. However, one thing in this case does stand out as startlingly clear: it is a myth that growing and smoking cannabis makes you 'mellow' or 'laid back'; psychotic - yes; sociable - no. The rather graphic video below reveals the bloody aftermath of Amrani's rampage in Liège.

Indiscriminate Killer - Nordine Amrani (courtesy of Daily Telegraph)

Muslim Prison Populations in Europe

Much has been written in the UK over the past year highlighting the disproportionate representation of Muslims in the prison population; moreover, the deeply worrying phenomenon of Muslim gangs targeting inmates for conversion has been brought to light. According to the Labour Market Survey the UK had a Muslim population of a little over 2.4 million in 2008 out of a total population of 61.4 million, some 3.9% of the total. However, in that same year some 12% of the prison population of England and Wales was recorded as being Muslim.

Although these figures demonstrate the statistically higher frequency of criminality amongst the Muslim population in England and Wales, data from elsewhere is even more startling. A report in the Washington Post from 2008 stated:

Research by the Open Society Institute, an advocacy organization, shows that in the Netherlands 20 percent of adult prisoners and 26 percent of all juvenile offenders are Muslim; the country is about 5.5 percent Muslim. In Belgium, Muslims from Morocco and Turkey make up at least 16 percent of the prison population, compared with 2 percent of the general populace, the research found.

These figures are bad, but they pale in comparison with those encountered within the French penal system:

As a matter of policy, the French government does not collect data on race, religion or ethnicity on its citizens in any capacity, making it difficult to obtain precise figures on the makeup of prison populations. But demographers, sociologists and Muslim leaders have compiled generally accepted estimates showing Muslim inmate populations nationwide averaging between 60 and 70 percent.

Bivouac-ID notes that more conservative estimates of the French Muslim prison population still place it at in excess of 50% of the total. As in the UK, French prisoners are targeted for conversion to Islam, with an estimated 400 Islamists proselytising within the French prison system in 2008. The current French population is estimated at 65.4 million with some 5 million French citizens being Muslim (7.6%). Neighbouring Switzerland too has a significant overrepresentation of Muslims within the prison system. For example, the overcrowded Champ Dollon Prison in Geneva reported that in 2009, 56.6% of its inmates were Muslim.

Clearly, there is a problem of Muslim criminality which manifests itself across the societies of Western Europe which have admitted a significant influx of Muslim immigrants. A small part of this disproportionate representation will arise from the fact that the Muslim populations are younger than those of the host societies’ average owing to the higher Muslim fertility rate. In the UK for example, there were an estimated 301,000 Muslims under the age of 4 in September 2008. We should therefore expect the bulge in the Muslim criminal population to grow even further in the years ahead.

Having provided a brief sketch of the size of Muslim prison populations in a number of European states, I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions as to what these statistics demonstrate. Do they illustrate the innate ‘racism’ of the host societies and the alleged relative economic deprivation of Muslim populations as the official explanations would have you believe; or, is it the case that they demonstrate the innate incompatibility of Islam with our societies and the contempt of doctrinaire Muslims for the kuffar?

Ban the Burka! Belgium leads the Way

Following on from the Swiss decision to prohibit the construction of minarets, a Belgian parliamentary committee has decided to ban garments that cover the face and make identification impossible. This will therefore include both the burka and the niqab, behind which ‘devout’ Muslims like to hide their womenfolk. The Belgian parliament will have to vote on this proposal in April before it passes into law, but there are concerns that the country could be challenged through opponents taking their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

With some 650,000 Muslims in the country, the Belgians can expect to encounter some sour grapes from those of them who are intent upon imposing their alien standards in the heart of Europe. The Telegraph quotes Denis Ducarme, a Belgian MP whose party – the liberal Reformist Movement – drafted the ban, as saying that:

"This is a very strong signal being sent to Islamists . . . I am proud that Belgium would be the first country in Europe which dares to legislate on this sensitive matter."

If this makes so-called ‘devout’ Muslims reconsider whether they should be residing in Belgium, then this will be an additional benefit of the legislation. Such people who are unhappy living in accordance with non-Muslim norms in non-Muslim countries should be encouraged to leave. There are plenty of places around the world where they can shroud themselves in cloth and live lives of Islamic misery. On that note, cheer yourself up with a satirical take on the absurdity of the burka by watching and listening to Burka Blue by the Burka Band, the bravest and hottest female act in Afghanistan.