MOLENBEEK, Brussels - In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, Belgian police have been carrying out continuous raids in the Brussels immigrant district of Molenbeek, dubbed an extremist haven by the media but unnerving the Muslim residents.
This is the section of Brussels where investigators say Salal Abdelsalam, the 26-year-old who has been named as a conspirator in the Paris attacks, had been living.
At least three others connected to the attacks also lived in Molenbeek.
Some of the residents feared the focus on their community in Molenbeek would further stigmatize them among the non-Muslim majority in Belgium, while others feared for their safety and that the violence of the Middle East was coming here.
“We never saw before such operations by the Belgian police,” Thuraya, a Belgian woman of Moroccan origin, told Rudaw as she stood with her two young children near a roadblock where police were searching for a key suspect in the attacks.
“We just want to lead our life peacefully, work and bring up our children. These people (the Paris attackers) have nothing to do with Islam,” Thuraya said as armed police wearing bullet-proof vests ordered a crowd to keep their distance.
Thuraya complained that the police were lax in dealing with the situation.
“When I go to Morocco no one stops me and checks my car on the Belgian border. I am only checked when I board the ferry in Morocco but here no one checks.
“I can fill my car with all kinds of weapons and bring them in and no one will know.”
She also blamed the authorities for opening the borders for all the Syrian refugees. “How do we know what they were doing in Syria? Who they were fighting with? They let them in and now they are conducting these attacks,” she said.
Nadia, also a Belgian of Moroccan origin who lives in the neighborhood agreed with her.
“Where are the intelligence and the security services of France and Belgium? How could such attacks happen without them knowing?”
Mohammad, a 41-year-old Belgian from Molenbeek, also accused the Belgian authorities of being lax.
“The mistake falls first on the Belgian government who should have taken a decision. The ones who join ISIS and come back after fighting in Syria even if they are 5,000 should be kept aside and should be watched.”
He added that his neighbors are all aware when a young man is radicalized but the police seem to be oblivious to it.
”I know a young guy who is 23 years old who suddenly grew his beard and his wife started wearing the burqa. We all noticed it. How come the government does not notice this? The government is just not doing anything”.
Mohammad, who like all the others interviewed by Rudaw refused to give his last name, said a 51-year-old friend of his had a son who was radicalized by “a bunch of guys who were known to the authorities for their previous involvement in crimes, drug dealing and stealing.“
“My friend was crying and telling me that he did not raise his son to become like that. His son went to Turkey to enter Syria and was arrested by the PKK and put in jail and now he does not know what happened to him,” he said, referring to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
Molenbeek has long been a haven for Muslim radicals, according to the Belgian media.
In 2001, it was in Molenbeek where the assassins of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban commander Ahmad Shah Massoud had stayed.
It was also home to one of the 2004 Madrid train bombers and the main suspect in the 2014 Jewish Museum attack in Brussels, while the perpetrator of a foiled attack in August on an Amsterdam-Paris train stayed in Molenbeek with his sister before boarding in Brussels.
The Belgium media carried accusations that the politicians that ran the district of Molenbeek turned the blind eye to the extremists in order to maintain social harmony and get re-elected.
The Muslim residents said they were vigilant to make sure their own children do not become extremists, but feared they would suffer even more discrimination because of the negative views of the non-Muslim majority.
Abderrahman, a 51-year-old Belgian father of three young men, told Rudaw: “I will denounce my own sons if I know they are being radicalized and planning on doing any attacks or on going to Syria. I prefer to do that than to let them die or kill innocent people.”
But Abderrahman, like all the other residents Rudaw interviewed in Molenbeek, were also afraid that their children could be the victims of either ISIS attacks or Islamophobic attacks.
“We are scared that a nationalist, a crazy person comes and starts firing in our mosque during prayers and massacres us,” he added.
“I am scared also that my sons can be victims of an ISIS attack.”
“We (Muslims in Brussels) are doubly affected by these attacks. We are between two fires; the fire of the white people and the fire of the Islamists,” he said.
He also feared that his sons would not find jobs.
Mohammad said discrimination is already strong because he has been working for 20 years as an electrician but his company has not once promoted him.
“I am better qualified than many of my colleagues but I was not given one single promotion. We are not Belgians in their eyes. They will never consider us Belgians.”
Ismail Ahadouch, a young man born in Molenbeek, complained that non-Muslims had a wrong impression about his religion.
“Islam is about peace. Imagine, we are two billion Muslims in the world and if we are all terrorists the world would explode."
The police arrested him a few years ago in connection with a small theft that happened in a laundry mat.
“The police arrested me and I was insulted even by the commissioner himself and later they apologized when they saw on the cameras that I had nothing to do with it.,” he said.
“I said to them it is because of people like you that there are wars. Only because I look like a Muslim, we are branded, “ he said.
“The media always talk about bad things and never about good things. The bad things are not even five percent,” he said.
“Why is there such a dirty image of Muslims? When you are a believer you do not do bad things,” he said.
Yet, for him, the Western powers have also done wrong.
“They attacked Iraq, Syria and Libya and they said in Iraq they had chemical weapons and it was not true and all that for the riches of the countries.”
He added: “We know; we discuss things among ourselves.”
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