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Dutch discuss racist attacks

01 January 1991

Dutch discuss racist attacks
artdoc June=1992

On March 24, Dutch parliament had an 6-hour debate on the
Binnenlandse Veiligheidsdienst (BVD) which included a discussion
on the nature of recent racist attacks. Most MPs criticized the
recent BVD report, especially in the stress it laid on the threat
of Muslim fundamentalism while virtually ignoring racist
violence. The minister of the interior Mrs Dales however defended
the apparent imbalance by claiming that BVD investigations had
shown that no extreme right party or organization was involved
in the recent wave of attacks against the houses and businesses
of immigrants. The perpetrators according to Mrs. Dales were now
thought to be fringe group youths, who used varying names and
primitive devices in their attacks.
In a reaction to this, the Hague police publicly dissociated
itself from this analysis. `The attacks in our town do show a
pattern of connections. We are investigating in right-wing
circles because of the choice of the objects and the way in which
the attacks are claimed or announced. The minister's statements
are completely on her account', a police spokesman said.
The BVD gathers information on asylum seekers from the Aliens
Department and is routinely provided with the names and other
basic data of certain agreed categories of refugees seeking
asylum. The BVD order the complete files on the persons they are
interested in, which occurred in some 130 cases in the last eight
months. This resulted in about twenty BVD attempts to seek
further information or collaboration from asylum seekers
themselves. Mrs. Dales stressed that information on vulnerable
individuals such as Iraqi or Kurdish refugees would never be
provided to the security services of their home countries, but
`when for instance a member of the Hezbollah seeks refuge here,
we have to ask for information from Israeli or U.S.
intelligence'.

Statewatch, vol 2, no 3, May-June 1992
Racism Europe