Belgium: mayor condemns TV documentary makers as racists and Islamophobes

The mayor of  Molenbeek, Philippe Moureaux (Parti Socialiste), has made some very harsh remarks about the RTBF [Radio Télévision Belge Francophone] journalists who made the "Questions à la Une" programme broadcast last Wednesday and titled "Should we fear Islam?", speaking of "manipulation of information" and going so far as to characterise the authors as "racists" and "Islamophobes".

"This is a totally outrageous programme", he said in a telephone interview broadcast on Maghreb TV, saying that he was "absolutely furious" that his contribution has been censored, "in order to maliciously show only unpleasant images and provide a platform for well-known Islamophobes".

"Not a single positive image was chosen", added the mayor of Molenbeek, the town where a large part of the programme was filmed. "To present that [the fact that some women wear the veil in the town despite a long-established ban] as an image that shows the rise of Islamism is straightforward manipulation", he continued.

Molenbeek has some 94,000 inhabitants, of whom a large part are of North African origin. "It is a community who deserve the greatest respect. And just because there are some people whose behaviour we don't like that is no reason to condemn the whole community."

"Antisemitism once achieved success by these sort of methods. This is also how Goebbels tried to attack Jews, just as some people now attack Muslims," the senator-mayor declared. "I realise that I have only served as a foil to racists and Islamophobes", M. Moureaux concluded in the interview which was posted on YouTube on Thursday.

Le Vif, 17 April 2012

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