Netherlands: Freedom Party shocked by integration report

Via RNW:

Freedom Party MP Joram van Klaveren says the annual integration report from the Netherlands Institute for Social Research (SCP) paints a “shocking” picture of crime among non-Western ethnic minorities.

The SCP report is not due to be published until 8 February but, according to the anti-Islam Freedom Party, the figures show that Moroccans and Antilleans are more than five times as likely to be crime suspects than indigenous Dutch people.

(source)

Netherlands: Minister says imams should speak out against homophobia

Via spitsnieuws (Dutch):

Education Minister Van Bijsterveldt says all imams in the Netherlands should jointly speak against homophobic violence and support respecting gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgenders.

“I would really appreciate it if they do that, just like Christian churches did not so long ago,” she said yesterday during a meeting of SMN (Alliance of Moroccan-Dutch) in Utrecht. The minister said it would be a strong signal that everyone can be part of the Muslim community, regardless of sexual orientation, origin or culture.

Yesterday Van Bijsterveldt received the results of a three-year project of dialog meetings, expert meeting and school meetings that SMN conducted among Moroccans on accepting gays in their community. “It must really come from inside one’s own community, It can’t come from outside. That’s why I have such admiration for the courage of leaders and others who stand up in this community and support accepting gays,” she said.

Some experts say that the curriculum in elementary school should include attention to homosexuality. But Van Bijsterveldt says that’s up to the schools.

It was revealed yesterday that there’s certainly progress in the possibility of discussing homosexuality among Moroccans. More young Moroccan gay are coming out of the closet. Although exclusion and even abuse after ‘coming out’ is still not uncommon. NIP, the Dutch Institute of Psychologists, is concerned about the welfare of these youth.

“There are about 10,000 Muslim gay youth ages 15-25 in our country and they really run a high risk of severe mental, emotional problems,” says Michaël von Bönninghausen, NIP psychologist and head of the Crisis Intervention Network for School Psychologists. “It’s difficult for a Dutch youth to accept his homosexuality. For a Muslim youth it’s 10,000 times harder. Social workers, schools, sports clubs should see these youth and develop the expertise to guide them. These youth suffer more often from psychological problems like depression and drug abuse. They also often go into prostitution.

Netherlands: Immigration minister wants to get rid of ‘allochtoon’

Via DutchNews:

The word allochtoon, literally meaning non-native, should no longer be applied to people born in the Netherlands, immigration minister Gerd Leers told a meeting on Monday night, according to the Telegraaf.

‘I want people born in the Netherlands to be called Dutch, plain and simple, not non-native,’ Leers told the readers of women’s magazine Libelle.

(source)

Netherlands: Dutch plan ban on Muslim face veils next year

Via Reuters:

The Dutch minority government plans to ban Muslim face veils such as burqas and other forms of clothing that cover the face from next year.

The ban would make the Netherlands, where 1 million out of 17 million people are Muslim, the second European Union country to ban the burqa after France, and would apply to face-covering veils if they were worn in public.

“People should be able to look at each other’s faces and recognize each other when they meet,” the interior affairs ministry said in a statement Friday.

(source)

Via RNW:

The burqa ban passed by the cabinet on Friday is drawing mostly negative reactions, both among Muslim organisations and political parties.

A large Turkish interest group, IOT, says the government hasn’t considered the ban’s consequences. “Women who currently only venture outside, or are allowed to go outside, wearing a burqa, will from now on stay home,” IOT chair Aydin Akkaya warns.

(source)

Netherlands: Law to ban burkas highly criticised by government advisors

Via DutchNews:

Draft legislation aimed at banning burkas in the Netherlands has been heavily criticised by the government’s most important advisory body and needs significant amendments, news agency ANP reports, citing regional newspapers.

(source)

Netherlands: Majority Dutch think Queen should wear headscarf to mosque

Via De Telegraaf (Dutch):

Queen Beatrix wore a headscarf while visiting a mosque in Oman this week, as a sign of respect for local custom. The Party for Freedom (PVV) criticized her, saying she was supporting the oppression of women under Islam.

According to a Maurice de Hond poll, 79% of the Dutch think she acted properly. 20% think the Queen shouldn’t have worn a headscarf. 53% also think that Beatrix should wear a headscarf when visiting a mosque in the Netherlands. Among PVV voters, 47% think the Queen acted properly, 53% disagree.

58% of the poll respondents don’t think the headscarf is a symbol of the oppression of women. Among PVV voters, 77% do think so.

Netherlands: Khat is banned

Via Expatica:

The Dutch government Tuesday banned the use of khat, a leaf native to East Africa chewed for its stimulant properties mainly by the Netherlands’ sizeable Somali community.

“The drug khat is banned,” the Dutch Immigration, Health and Justice departments said in a joint statement.

Khat is grown in the Horn of Africa and has for centuries been chewed by users in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and Yemen.

“The problem lies especially within the Somali community, which is much larger than the Kenyan or Yemeni communities within our country,” immigration department spokesman Frank Wassenaar told AFP, adding there were about 27,000 Somalis living in the Netherlands

(source)

Netherlands/Abu Dhabi: Queen’s headscarf causes row

Via RNW:

Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, who is in Abu Dhabi, wore a headscarf when she visited the Sheikh Zayed Mosque this morning out of respect for the customs, traditions and conventions of Islam, says Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal. The queen is on a two-day state visit to the United Arab Emirates.

“Not to have worn one during a visit to a mosque wasn’t an option. In that case, the invitation to visit to the mosque, one of the most important in the United Arab Emirates, would’ve had to have been refused,” explained Mr Rosenthal.

(source)

Netherlands: Somalis fight for residency rights

33 Somali asylum seekers are staging a protest in front of a detention centre in Ter Apel, a village in a remote part of the northeast of the Netherlands. Full clip here.

Antwerp: Dutch-Moroccan supermarket chain comes to Belgium

Via vandaag (Dutch):

Grocery-store chain Vers Centrum Tanger, owned by the Moroccan Barghaoul family from the Hague, will come to Antwerp in January. The chain has two shops in the Netherlands (Amsterdam and the Hague), and mostly targets immigrants. Tanger has a reputation of being very cheap.

The two Dutch branches get 50,000 visitors a week with an overall turnover of 22 million euro. It offers 4,000 products, half of which are from abroad.

By 2013 manager and owner Ahmed Barghaoul (47) wants to have ten shops, including four in Belgium. If business goes well in Antwerp, the chain will open another shop in Brussels in the next six months. In Antwerp Tanger hopes for sales of 10 million euro and 30 employees.