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Torture slaying of Jewish Frenchman spurs massive march
CBC News ^ | February 26, 2006

Posted on 02/28/2006 2:35:05 AM PST by beaversmom

Tens of thousands of demonstrators marched through Paris on Sunday to protest anti-Semitism and racism after the torture and killing of a young Jewish man.

Organizers had asked for a silent vigil, but some protesters chanted "Justice for Ilan" or carried banners with slogans such as "No to a racist France" or "Ilan tortured, France wounded." Marchers in Paris on Feb. 26, 2006, protest the killing of Ilan Halimi. The yellow signs say: "Don't touch my friend". (AP Photo/Francois Mori)

Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old cellphone salesman, was abducted on Jan. 21 by members of a gang who held him hostage in a Paris suburb for three weeks while demanding ransoms from his family.

He died en route to hospital on Feb. 13 after he was found lying beside some train tracks, naked, handcuffed and covered with burn marks.

Halimi's slaying was requalified as a hate crime after investigators found out the gang members targeted him because he was Jewish and they believed the anti-Semitic stereotype that all Jews are rich.

French officials allege the gang has been operating an extortion ring for several years, often targeting Jews. They accuse gang members of trying to abduct six other people since December, four of them Jewish.

The anti-Semitic overtones stunned France's Jewish community of 500,000, many of whom joined the march in Paris or smaller marches in Strasbourg, Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux on Sunday.

Police estimated that about 33,000 people marched in Paris, while organizers said the crowd included as many as 200,000.

It included politicians of all stripes – including several cabinet ministers and former prime minister Lionel Jospin – as well as prominent Jewish and Catholic religious leaders.

"Today, we must march, we must stand up, to say that in France each of us has the right to live in dignity whatever his God, his religion, the colour of his skin," Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy told demonstrators.

One of the Jewish protesters, Olivier Barbe, carried a handmade placard reading "If only I were rich!"

"Ilan's murder was based on anti-Semitic prejudice," Barbe told CBC News in French.

"Because he was Jewish, his captors assumed he was rich. And that wasn't the case at all. It's completely wrong. You can be Jewish and on welfare. That's my case."

Fourteen people have been placed under judicial investigation in relation with Halimi's slaying.

The man accused of being the gang's ringleader fled to Ivory Coast about a week before the march. He was caught and is awaiting extradition to France.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS:
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Anyone on FR know anything about this? What kind of "gang" was this? No names are mentioned.
1 posted on 02/28/2006 2:35:07 AM PST by beaversmom
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To: beaversmom
I'll take a shot: they weren't "rampaging Episcopalians".
2 posted on 02/28/2006 2:36:36 AM PST by Caipirabob (Communists... Socialists... Democrats...Traitors... Who can tell the difference?)
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To: beaversmom
The anti-Semitic overtones stunned France's Jewish community of 500,000

What a Moosegang did stuned their beebers?

3 posted on 02/28/2006 2:42:21 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: beaversmom
What kind of "gang" was this? No names are mentioned.

It's a muslim gang... inspired by Islam of course... what else will anyway!

4 posted on 02/28/2006 2:42:40 AM PST by ChristianDefender (There is no such thing as Moderate Islam...)
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To: ChristianDefender

But they're not going to leak the secret by, say, divulging a name or two of the culprits.


5 posted on 02/28/2006 2:43:18 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: Caipirabob; beaversmom
LINK

LINK

LINK

LINK

LINK

LINK

LINK

6 posted on 02/28/2006 2:46:36 AM PST by MarMema (Buy Danish, support freedom)
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To: beaversmom

mozzies. Maghrebin. Nord Africain


7 posted on 02/28/2006 2:46:48 AM PST by Cronos (Remember 9/11. Restore Hagia Sophia! Ultra-Catholic: Sola Scriptura leads to solo scriptura.)
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To: HiTech RedNeck
not going to leak the secret

Exactly. What else can you expect from muslims. they protect their fellows whether with good or bad acts..

8 posted on 02/28/2006 2:47:16 AM PST by ChristianDefender (There is no such thing as Moderate Islam...)
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To: Cronos

mussulman musclemen


9 posted on 02/28/2006 2:48:27 AM PST by HiTech RedNeck
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To: beaversmom
One more really good link
10 posted on 02/28/2006 2:52:49 AM PST by MarMema (Buy Danish, support freedom)
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To: MarMema

Thanks for all the links--love Mark Steyn.


11 posted on 02/28/2006 2:55:17 AM PST by beaversmom
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To: Caipirabob

more than likely not Born again Christians either. Amen.


12 posted on 02/28/2006 2:57:41 AM PST by gakrak ("A wise man's heart is his right hand, But a fool's heart is at his left" Eccl 10:2)
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To: beaversmom
I think this was the original thread on this horrific tragedy
13 posted on 02/28/2006 2:58:23 AM PST by MarMema (Buy Danish, support freedom)
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To: beaversmom

The authorities did everything they could to sweep this murder under the rug. Now they're trumpeting that they decided it was a hate crime when they found out the victim was Jewish and the killers thought he was rich. What a laugh. The other Jewish victims killed in the past few years were what? Poor? So that wasn't anti-Semitism, terror, torture, etc.? France arrives a little late to the party.


14 posted on 02/28/2006 2:59:15 AM PST by hershey
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To: beaversmom

Thanks for posting. What I remember is they castrated this young man and gouged out his eyes. Evil is running rampant in France.


15 posted on 02/28/2006 3:01:37 AM PST by MarMema (Buy Danish, support freedom)
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To: MarMema
Horrible beyond words. And then this poor guy from your link to the Steyn article.

Two years ago, a 23-year-old Paris disc jockey called Sebastien Selam was heading off to work from his parents' apartment when he was jumped in the parking garage by his Muslim neighbor Adel. Selam's throat was slit twice, to the point of near-decapitation; his face was ripped off with a fork; and his eyes were gouged out. Adel climbed the stairs of the apartment house dripping blood and yelling, "I have killed my Jew. I will go to heaven."

16 posted on 02/28/2006 3:04:59 AM PST by beaversmom
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To: hershey

Yeah, they are making a big deal over the "rich" angle. Somehow, I don't think that is the total picture.


17 posted on 02/28/2006 3:06:39 AM PST by beaversmom
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To: beaversmom; All

I've tried to wake people up to this stuff for years- click the Pic, and scroll backwards:







18 posted on 02/28/2006 3:07:13 AM PST by backhoe (Just an Old Keyboard Cowboy, Ridin' the Trakball into the Dawn of Information)
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To: beaversmom

If memory serves me right, it was only a few days ago that french leaders were saying this horrific kidnapping,torture and murder of a Jewish young man by Muslim thugs was a terrible crime, but was not really anti-semitic.
Mark Steyn is right,this is the canary in the coalmine. Once again the French are deaf dumb and blind to the anti-semitism and violence against Jews right in their very midst.
1936 all over again.


19 posted on 02/28/2006 3:10:28 AM PST by Cincinna (The ARKANSAS GRIFTERS want to take over your country. STOP THEM NOW!)
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To: beaversmom

Halimi sounds like an arab name...


20 posted on 02/28/2006 3:34:02 AM PST by ketelone
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