Weekly roundup

Allochtonen Weblog is a Dutch language blog that collects news about the immigrant community in the Netherlands. Here’s a few interesting stories they’ve had this week.
EU residence permit – An option for immigrants who find it hard to come up with the money for the Dutch residence permit is the EU permanent residence permit. There are no legal fees for it and it’s easier to get and keep.

Two Moroccans aged 19 and 23 have disappeared in Venray, in the southeastern Netherlands. It is assumed that they tried to rob a hemp nursery. The police have raided the place and found bloodstains.

The Moroccan mosque “Al Fath” in Tilburg has been closed by the municipality due to fire danger. In is unlikely that the mosque will open soon due the high costs of conforming it to the fire regulations. 650-700 people visited the mosque weekly and it offered language and religion lessons for kids on the weekend.

The Dutch Intelligence Service (AIVD) warns that there’s a growing number of young Dutch Muslims that go to Muslim countries to attend fundamental schools. The studies are being paid for by Saudi Arabia and Syria. The number of Muslims who go out to countries such as Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Syria had grown the past few years from a trickle to a few dozen. At least 6 students have returned from Pakistan to take up posts as imams.

Also two stories from the Dutch press I had no time to post. Both stories are from Parool.

Too little is being done to recruit immigrants to the police according to Dutch Interior Minister John Remkes. Eight of 26 police regions returned numbers as to the number of immigrants they employed. This comes out to 0.6% Moroccans and 1.1% Turks. The general population stands at 1.9% Moroccans and 2.2% Turks.

Immigrant civil servants make 4% less than ethnic Dutch according to recent statistics by the Central Bureau for Statistics. Putting aside the differences in education, the difference goes up to 20% by 1st generation immigrants and 25% by 2nd generation immigrants.