On the 7th of October, during an event in Pakhuis de Zwijger, the various plaintiffs elaborated on their claims against the Dutch State for ethnic profiling by the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee. The claimants, including two individual citizens, Amnesty International, Controle Alt Delete, anti-discrimination agency RADAR and the Public Interest Litigation Project of the Nederlands Juristen Comité voor de Mensenrechten (PILP-NJCM), have asked the Court to draw a line and end discriminatory border controls. A brief version of the recording of the event, with English subtitles, is available here.
At border controls, among other factors, the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee select people based on their appearance, skin colour or origin. The Royal Netherlands Marechaussee also uses general risk profiles in which ethnicity plays a role. A possible risk profile is of men who walk fast, are well-dressed and look “non-Dutch”. The use of these criteria or considerations indicates ethnic profiling. This practice is a form of discrimination and violates human rights.
Merel Hendrickx (human rights lawyer at PILP) and Peter Rodrigues (Professor Immigration Law at Leiden University) examined the question of how the Royal Netherlands Marechaussee should carry out border controls. Mpanzu Bamenga (participant in the lawsuit), Dave Bekkering (complaints handler for anti-discrimination agency RADAR) and Gerbrig Klos (senior policy advisor at Amnesty International) discussed what they would like to accomplish with the lawsuit. Moderator of the event was Dionne Abdoelhafiezkhan (IZI Solutions).
The full recording of the event in Dutch is available on the website of Pakhuis de Zwijger. Read more about the event or watch the recording here.
More information about the lawsuit? See the article on the website of PILP-NJCM, the blog of Controle Alt Delete or the news item by the NOS.
