Belgium is considered a relatively safe country[1] compared to its neighbouring countries. According to Urban Audit, in 2001, Brussels had the fourth highest number of recorded crimes of European capitals (behind Stockholm, Amsterdam, and Berlin, and virtually on a par with Helsinki). According to the same source, Brussels had a rate of 10 murders or violent deaths per 100.000 citizens. Belgium's second largest city, Antwerp, saw crime rates about 20% below those of Brussels. Liège and Charleroi, industrial cities with high unemployment rates, saw more elevated crime rates than the less industrialized cities of Ghent and Bruges. The rural areas are generally extremely safe.
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In the 1990s and early 2000s, attacks on money transit vans were perpetrated, often killing the security agents in charge, and the country was hit by several large-scale crime scandals, such as those of the Brabant Wallon killers, the Scarface gang and the Belgian Mafia. More recently, some scandals have emerged regarding corruption and misuse of public resources (such as ICDI affair). In addition, petty crimes such as street thefts, purse snatchings, and pickpocketing can be found in the main city centers, but remain limited in scale. Car theft used to occur frequently, but is in strong diminution in the last decade.[2]
| In | Belgium |
|---|---|
| Ethnicity | Primarily Belgians, minorities of various Africans |
| Criminal activities | assasinations, diamond smuggling, extortion, arms trafficking, fraud, cybercrime, prostitution, drug trafficking |
A study based on data from 1999 concluded that minors of non-European nationality were overrepresented in crime statistics. While 4.4% of the Belgian population has a non-European nationality, 19% of all prosecuted cases, and 24% of cases presented in youth court involved non-European nationals.
Usually, serious safety issues in Brussels are mostly limited to residential boroughs with a low income population. These include notably Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Schaarbeek, Anderlecht, and Forest/Vorst.
In November 2005, Brussels was very minorly affected by the spread of the French riots. Another recent development is a steep increase in violent armed robberies carried out by minors.
However, as official statistics show [3] the trend for violent crime is strongly downward, murder rate is stable, around 1.8 per 100.000 inhabitants,[4] while Cybercrime related issues are very steeply on the rise.
Besides general safety issues in some boroughs, Brussels reportedly serves as a hub for terrorists, as reported by various sources such as Interpol, and local newspapers such as Het Nieuwsblad and Het Volk. In the same boroughs that pose safety problems (e.g. Sint-Jans-Molenbeek, Schaarbeek, ...) there is radicalisation and active recruitment by terrorist organizations such as Al-Qaeda. This remains however very limited in scale, the occurrence of Belgian nationals directly linked to international terrorism hovering around 0.1-1 per million inhabitants for the last decade.[5]
The two Tunisian nationals who assassinated Commander Massoud in Afghanistan had fake Belgian passports, and the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain, or GICM) has links in Belgium too - there were arrests in Brussels and Antwerp of individuals involved in the Madrid bombing. As a result, stringent measures were taken against passport and other official documents forging.
Belgium has also seen "hate crimes" against visible minorities recently, including the Hans Van Themsche case, the Patrick Mombaerts case or other acts of racist violence.
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