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12. 04. 12. - 13:00

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12. 04. 12. - 13:00

Flemish far-right leader wants Roma out of Belgium

Michael Leidig

The leader of the Belgian far-right party Vlaams Belang (Flemish Interest) told Mediafax news agency today (Thurs) his website had nothing against Eastern Europeans, but he wanted Roma people to leave Belgium.

Filip Dewinter says the website has been launched because the illegal immigrants, most of them coming from North-Africa, are creating many problems in his country. "Most of the problems are created by the Roma and they should go home," he said in an interview for Mediafax.

"With the Roma we have many problems. But I am not particularly interested in their ethnic origin. It’s about the illegality of their situation here and about the fact that they are abusing the welfare protection system, they work on the black market, they commit crimes and deal in drugs. These are the things we are interested in," Dewinter says.

Vlaams Belang launched a website (www.meldpuntillegaliteit.be) on Wednesday that invites people to report crimes committed by illegal immigrants, a site similar to the one set up by the far-right Freedom Party (PVV) in the Netherlands.

However, Dewinter says his website has nothing to do with the Dutch website.
"I know everybody confuses our site with the PVV website which is about Eastern  Europeans and the problems they are creating there. Our website is about illegal immigrants and our problems with them and about the government’s immigration policies that we consider very weak. This is our priority not the Romanians or the Poles."

Dewinter says the Roma can not integrate in the society.

"Roma are a big issue for us, they are present in many cities across Belgium. Most of the asylum seekers are Roma or gypsies and they do not integrate here, they do not want to speak our language, they create many problems. Their place is not here and it is very clear they should go back to their countries. It is obvious they only want to take advantage of their stay here and we cannot allow them to stay here without contributing to our society, without working, earning their money and paying taxes."

Romanian Member of European Parliament Corina Cretu filed a complaint with the European Commission yesterday (Weds) against Vlaams Belang asking to close down the website.

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