Europe Brussels Neighborhood Struggles to Break Ties to Terrorism Molenbeek confronts legacy as caldron of Paris and Brussels attacks with policing and job trainingBy Valentina Pop
https://www.wsj.com/articles/brussels-neighborhood-struggles-to-break-ties-to-terrorism-1518085801
BRUSSELS—This week’s trial of the only surviving assailant from the November 2015 Paris attacks has refocused attention on the Brussels district of Molenbeek where he grew up and was captured.
Salah Abdeslam’s trial for attempted murder is a painful reminder for the neighborhood of its role as the breeding ground of the terror cell that killed 130 people in those attacks and another 32 in Brussels in suicide bombings on March 22, 2016.Molenbeek Mayor Françoise Schepmans, who has lived in the neighborhood for over 50 years, keeps the memory of those attacks alive, among other things with a monument to Brussels victims installed in front of the district’s opulent 19th-century town hall. “This is part of our history,” she said. “Molenbeek was a fertile ground for terrorism.”
Now she says her office is working to make it less so, both by stepping up policing and by promoting efforts to improve cultural and economic opportunities for Molenbeek’s residents.
Under the authority of zoning regulations, district authorities have launched periodic checks to ensure Molenbeek’s mosques aren’t fostering militant versions of Islam. Five of the neighborhood’s 25 mosques and Quranic schools have been shut down on those grounds over the past two years.
Law-enforcement efforts have also increased since 2016, with a doubling of surveillance cameras and a beefed-up police force. Molenbeek now has three rather than just one security official charged with keeping tabs on two-dozen families suspected of radicalism.
Belgian prosecutors on Thursday asked that Mr. Abdeslam be given 20 years in prison for his involvement in a shoot-out with police officers in Brussels days before the Brussels attacks. Mr. Abdeslam’s lawyer on Thursday demanded his acquittal on procedural grounds and said there was no evidence his client opened fire. The trial will resume on March 29.Molenbeek, once home to Mr. Abdeslam and many of the dead men alleged to have been his co-conspirators, faces daunting economic challenges. Located just west of central Brussels, it is among the poorest of Belgium’s 589 districts, and its 27% unemployment rate in 2016—the latest year with available data—was more than triple the 7.8% national level. Youth unemployment was 38%, compared with 20% nationally, and youth workers say a third of local students are two or more years behind in school. CONTINUE AT SITE
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