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.
Less aslyum seekers but more in the Netherlands
There are less and less asylum seekers, but the number of asylum requests in the Netherlands is going up. While the sum total went down by 14% the number of requests in the Netherlands went up by close to 180% (from 5200 for the first 6 months last year to 9000 this year).
China led the list of asylum seekers, followed by Iraq, Serbia, Russia and Turkey.
Ramadan Festival
Minister Nicolaï of Urban Renewal and Amsterdam mayor Cohen opened the Ramadan Festival in Amsterdam Sunday. Minister Van der Hoeven of Education will open that Rotterdam Festival.
The starting point of the opening party was peace, with a dialog about peace and video messages of famous Dutch on the subject.
The Ramadan Festival is celebrating its 2nd year.
Islamobile in the Netherlands
The Islamobile, a mobile information center about Islam, has arrived in the Netherlands. The Islamobil is a van made to look up like a mosque with a dome and two minarets on the roof. It was started in 2001 by a group of German Muslims who wanted to inform Germans about Islam. Currently all the information is in German, but if reactions will be positive it will be translated into Dutch.
See also Spiegel Online's English article on the Islamobile: Allah's Mobile Information Point
Mosque running out of room
The Moroccan mosque in Etten-Leur is looking for a bigger place. According to the mosque president with the Ramadan coming up, 200 people will be coming to pray but there will be no room. There is currently no room for women. The mosque had tried looking for other places and turned to churches as well, but so far has found no alternative.
Broadcaster fined for not enough minority broadcasting
NPS, a Dutch gov’t-funded broadcasting foundation, has been fined 27,000 euro for not broadcasting enough programs for minorities. 16% of the foundations TV broadcast time was aimed at minorities instead of the required 20%, while on radio it broadcast 21% of the time to minorities instead of the required 25%.
No comments:
Post a Comment