The Joys of Diversity & Cultural Enrichment (XVIII): A Dutch Special

A collection of stories about diversity in the Netherlands.

• From NIS comes the story of a Moroccan politician who was falsely claiming benefits in the Netherlands. The Moroccan government is now pressuring the Netherlands to drop the prosecution:

Under pressure from Morocco, the Public Prosecutor in the Netherlands has requested acquittal for a member of the Moroccan parliament that misappropriated 130,000 euros in the Netherlands via years of social security fraud, says PvdA MP Hans Spekman. He suspects "class justice."

The suspect, who holds Dutch as well as Moroccan nationality, received welfare benefit payments from Utrecht city council for 11 consecutive years. Six years ago, the police received a tipoff that he was a council member in Morocco and had a country house and a chicken farm in that country. Due to all his possessions, he had no entitlement to benefit.

The suspect has meanwhile risen to become an MP in Morocco. He is said to have defrauded the council of 130,000 euros. But the public prosecutor in Utrecht has now requested acquittal of the 68 year old man due to a lack of evidence that he had done this deliberately. The prosecutor also considered it was not proven that the man had his main residence in Morocco.

Spekman wants clarification by the cabinet. The PvdA MP was earlier an Alderman in Utrecht. He says the demand for acquittal "reeks of class justice" and suspects the public prosecutor has bowed to years of diplomatic pressure from Morocco. According to Spekman, the MP has meanwhile easily "been able to stash away" all kinds of possessions, such as houses and land in Morocco.

The magistrate will rule on 29 June. Spekman acknowledges that it is not customary for politicians to intervene in ongoing court cases, but finds the case too serious to let it go. He wants a statement from Social Affairs State Secretary Jetta Klijnsma.

• A homeless youth attacked three social workers with a knife in an Amsterdam shelter during a meeting to address his aggressive behaviour. One, a 38 year old woman, was killed:

A 38-year-old staff member was stabbed to death in an Amsterdam shelter for homeless youth on Monday afternoon.

The incident occurred during a “correction meeting” to address the attacker's aggressive behaviour. Three female employees were present with the 21-year-old youth when he reacted violently to reports on his conduct.

He then attacked the women before fleeing the shelter. The other two staff members are reported to be in stable condition.

The youth was later arrested on a city bus after an intensive search by police.

• A man has been ordered to undertake 30 hours unpaid work after threatening ambulance staff treating his brother for a stab wound in Amsterdam, telling them 'if he dies, so do you':

A 20-year-old man from Amsterdam, 'Omdat S.', has been sentenced to two weeks in jail and 30 hours community service for threatening an ambulance worker after his brother was stabbed in the west of the city last September.

The man will not be sent to jail because he had been held in jail for 16 days before his case came to trial, news agency ANP reports.

'If he dies, you will die too,' the man had told emergency service workers as they tried to help his brother.

The man was one of 17 people to appear in court at the end of May charged with offences against emergency service workers and the police.

• Paul Lucre, a gay, liberal, Hispanic-American, has written about his experiences of Rotterdam. Despite sympathising with the 'plight' of his Moroccan attackers and suggesting that he deserves to get beaten up for being an American less than a white American, it is a good read:

Rotterdam’s demographics make it the unofficial capital of Eurabia. Its population is half non-Western or of non-Western descent. Muslims make up close to 25 percent of its population. Unskilled, undereducated, and increasingly unemployed workers abound. And segregation — ubiquitous in all large European cities — is extremely acute here. Rotterdam’s ghettos would make Hitler smile.

In the last few weeks, I’ve witnessed two violent incidents in downtown Rotterdam between whites and non-whites. Each started over absolutely nothing, but flared up like lighter fluid on hot coals. All sorts of racial and religious tensions — which were only intensified by the 2002 murder of city leader Pim Fortuyn and the 2004 murder of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh — fog the streets of this working-class shipping town.

Everyone here walks around with a hair trigger. On a recent Sunday, a Moroccan man and his girlfriend walked past a group — including myself — that was smoking outside a gay bar. One Dutch gay man was briefly in the way of the girlfriend. The Moroccan spat on him. A brawl ensued. I kept my distance. Some of us, and the Moroccan, ran around the corner. I heard awful screams.

An hour later, one of the gay men returned with a torn shirt and a stab wound. The Moroccan had run into a kebab shop yelling, and about a dozen Moroccans came out and attacked the gays with knives. The stab victim also had a long knife cut along his neck — slightly more pressure would have severed a major artery. The barman was nervous, fearing the Moroccans would return looking for trouble.

Hat tip: Klein Verzet.