'crime' - tagged features

Some in Poland are worried about what’s seen as a criminal westernisation of their country. Crimes that were thought of as exclusively west European are now appearing in Polish statistics. One such crime is date-rape, often perpetrated by spiking a victim’s drink with a drug that knocks them out, sometimes even wiping their memory. Now a new campaign’s under way to make young Poles aware of the dangers they face. 

The Swedish government has adopted a new plan of action to fight child sex tourism. The measure has been welcomed by the main non-governmental organisation which highlights the problem. But campaigners feel more needs to be done to come to grips with the problem. 

The French may well be glad to see the back of a year that saw France make world headlines – but not the sort of headlines they would want. November witnessed the worst spate of social unrest since the nationwide car-burning frenzy of 2005. President Nicolas Sarkozy called those responsible for the recent riots “yobs and traffickers.” Not everyone agreed. Lamia Belassen is a 17-year-old high school student from Paris who’s unhappy with the new reputation building around France’s young people. She’s part of a youth group organized by the city and told Radio France International’s Sarah Elzas that stereotypes are being created. 

Romania joined the European Union on January the 1st 2007. Initially the West feared a massive wave of immigration from Romania and Bulgaria. It wasn’t really like that. Romanians have continued to go to work in Italy and Spain as they used to do before Romania’s entry in the EU. But in recent months, Italian and Spanish newspapers have abounded in rather unflattering articles about the Romanian community there, which is the biggest foreign community in Italy, numbering according to official figures half a million Romanians. 

And a new regular item on the NE website - we travel around Europe to receive a postcard from one of our producers or reporters. This week Radio Netherlands Richard Walker gives us a snapshot from Amsterdam's Schipol airport on the experience of travelling with a small child post the high profile kidnapping of Madelaine Mccann - in Portugal... 

What is second life ? Well, It’s a world where you can make up a new identity. One where you can launch that business you always dreamed of, have the partner of your dreams, change the colour of your hair, wear crazy clothes, buy property, anything you like, on your computer, in 3-D quality. It was launched four years ago, and around 6 million people worldwide have already taken up residency in Second Life. They can do things that they’re afraid of doing in real life. Now what happens if they break the law….if they’re dangerous? There are fears that this virtual world is becoming a haven for paedophiles and child pornography. 

Repeated shootings over the past few months have raised fears about gun crime in Britain’s black communities. Police and politicians have struggled to explain the surge in violence. Many black community members blame a culture that glamourises guns and gang membership. Deutsche Welle’s Stephen Beard reports from London. 

We’ve heard about gun violence and about school bullying. In France youth have been blamed for a lot of public violent events in the past few years, from a recent riot that broke out in a Paris train station, to the weeks of riots in 2005 in the Paris suburbs. Lamia Belassen is a 17 year old high school student in Paris who is part of a youth group organized by the city. Sarah Elzas asked her what she thought about the depiction of violent French youth. 

Gangster culture is becoming more and more popular around Europe, a leading Dutch MP in the Netherlands is now calling for new rules to tackle gangster culture in youth prisons. He wants uniforms to be re-introduced and says expensive designer clothing and jewellery must be banned. It's being called a bling-bling ban - but the MP in question says he's deadly serious about taking a harder line on young criminals. Radio Netherlands' Andy Clark reports for Network Europe from the Hague. 

Congolese victims can now take their Congolese torturers to court in France. This week the French Supreme Court overturned a stay on the case of the "disappeared of the Beach". In 1999, 350 refugees returning home to Brazzaville, in the Republic of Congo, were taken away by public authorities and "disappeared". Families of the victims, along with two survivors, started proceedings in French courts against some of the Congolese officials involved. The French Supreme Court's decision to allow the investigation to continue, affirms the concept of Universal jurisdiction. This means that for crimes involving torture, individuals can file a case in a foreign country for crimes committed abroad. 

Although the Sicilian Mafia have stopped the high-profile murders and bloody gang warfare of the 1990s, the organisation still controls large parts of the southern Italian island. But an EU-funded project aims to break the culture, of depending on the mafia for work, by providing legal jobs in the mafia heartlands, south of Palermo. And they are fighting the bosses with their own weapons - by using land confiscated from imprisoned mafia gangsters. Deutsche Welle’s Kate Hairsine reports from Sicily. 

French custom authorities have crushed and burnt nine tons of counterfeit cigarettes. They were part of 37 tons of cigarettes which were seized in April 2005 in the northern port of Le Havre: that's one point eight million packs, worth more than nine million euro. It was the biggest seizure of counterfeit tobacco in France. 

Swedish Police have closed down one of the biggest file-sharing websites on the net, dealing a huge blow to internet users who download music, films and games, for free. Three people were detained in several raids across the country. It is being claimed that powerful US lobby groups, forced the hand of the Swedish authorities. The justice minister is under fire, and so too it seems is the Swedish government's website, which has been subject to attacks over the internet. Radio Sweden reports.