Netherlands: Mosques under the threat of unlawful investigations

At least 10 Dutch municipalities have sent a private investigation agency to run “unlawful” investigations on mosques and Islamic institutions, according to local media reports.

The investigation was carried out by Nuance brings Training and Consultancy (NTA) who used unlawful undercover methods, on behalf of the municipalities on “radical trends that can represent a danger to society,” Dutch media NRC reported.

NTA investigators entered mosques in Rotterdam, Delft, Almere, Huizen, Leidschendam-Voorburg, Zoetermeer, Veenendaal and Ede running an investigation that cost an estimated amount of EUR300,000.

The staff burst into the mosques as members of the community or as visitors and talked to administrators and religious leaders. However, the reports concluded were not made public nor did the municipal councils have a glance at them.

NTA affirmed that the collected findings on the backgrounds of imams and administrators gathering their origins and their schooling were, nevertheless, submitted to the municipalities as “secret information.”

NCR, the Dutch daily newspaper witnessed an investigation report on a mosque in Veeneedaal. The former was written on families quarrels and study placements of the mosque’s members, in addition to a report conducted in the mosque of Ede monitored by Moroccan authorities.

Through the secret investigations, the municipalities wished to measure the role of Daesh in the Dutch society, as concerns over young people going to Syria for Jihad occupied the worries of the state.

State of othering and Islamophobia

Muslim communities and Islamic organizations in the Netherlands expressed grievance as they felt “othered” by the secretly run investigations that resulted in damaging the remaining trust between the communities and government.

Spior, Rotterdam umbrella organization that represents Muslims and encourages them to take part in the Dutch society, considered the investigation an example of Islamophobia.

“With a government that so violently and radically portrays the Muslim community as the ‘other’ and ‘potentially dangerous’, populism seems to have reached the upper government levels,” the organization said.

In a state where the freedom of Muslims becomes threatened day after another, this month’s investigations add up with the statements of far-right politician Geert Wilders who campaigned to take various measures to reach de-Islamification.

Banning the Quran, closing mosques and refraining Dutch people with dual nationality from voting constitute the main focus of 58-year-old Wilders and his party. Combining his extremism and a program aimed to radicalize Muslims from the Netherlands, Geert Wilders promotes Islamophobia and discrimination to a high extent.