2023-08-02 17:19:00
The walls of large cities are often adorned with tags and messages of all kinds. There are political messages, others more poetic when there is not one or the other declaration of love or lack of love. But very specific annotations intrigued and even worried some residents of Parc Josaphat, in Schaerbeek. It is more precisely near the bridge located a stone’s throw from the Paul Brien hospital that we can see these graffiti.
Is it, precisely, a simple graffiti or something else? If the question is asked, it is because we can read this: “10 euros 1g, 20 euros 2g, 40 euros 5g, 50 euros 6g”. For the somewhat worried onlookers who have unearthed this, it looks like a table showing the prices per gram for the purchase of narcotics. The practice exists in some complicated neighborhoods in Marseille, France. Would the process have been exported to Belgium? This is what fear some residents who do not want the area, relatively quiet, to turn into a potential landmark for drug dealers. Legitimate concerns or simple interpretation of a banal and uneventful tag?
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Known to the police
Walking around the famous wall, nothing suggests that it is a disreputable corner. By night, as by day, no street deal has in any case been seen. When questioned, passers-by (mainly residents of the neighborhood) are skeptical. Some are there to take advantage of a little calmer weather by walking almost in the sun. Others will tease the ball on the football and basketball fields or try a quick picnic, before the arrival of the rats, very numerous in the neighborhood.
“Ma’am, do you want some drugs? Because it is rather near the Cage aux Ours (place Verboekhoven, Editor’s note) that you will find some, advises a teenager. I take nothing, I swear! My father will kill me if I do this. But it is well known that it is there that it sells a lot”. Words confirmed by his entourage, who specifies that the place is “far too full of cameras for drugs to be sold quietly”.
An adult who accompanies the small group of young people adds: “See the type of dwellings around us. We are not in the lower part of Schaerbeek here. You have to be totally stupid to start dealing here. As for the idea of displaying prices, I don’t believe it for a minute, unless you want to get busted”.
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Hafida, Schaerbeek resident and resident of Josaphat Park, knows the place well. She shares the opinion of the young people she met and believes that this tag is “probably the work of a budding artist… or who has smoked a little too much weed, but not a sales chart”. “I think it is a young person who hopes that his drawing will be included on the most beautiful pages of social networks who is behind this fresco. If the curious are interested in Schaerbeek and the evils that plague our town, I advise them to go and see the extent of the damage near Schaerbeek station or near Place Verboekhoven. The hard drug circulates normally and in broad daylight, it’s maddening”.
Contacted, the spokesperson for the Brussels North police zone (Pol BruNo) explains. “It’s a known tag and it’s not the only tag identified by our services. We do not know, however, if it is simple provocations or if it is linked to a drug deal”.
The police zone adds that the tag will be erased very soon. However, investigations might be carried out by the police to try to find out if it is a harmless artistic work, or if it is indeed a daring technique of the share of drug traffickers who want to attract customers…
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