Amsterdam: Moroccan-Born Mayor Dispenses Tough Love to Immigrants

For one Amsterdam mayor, the Netherlands' famous tolerance has gone too far. Morrocan-born Ahmed Marcouch is taking the tough cop approach in a rough Amsterdam neighborhood, pushing his fellow immigrants to integrate. But some consider him a traitor.

A street festival is in full swing in Amsterdam's Slotervaart neighborhood. The occasion is the dedication of a new community center for Christians and Muslims designed to foster interaction between the two groups.

As the crowd listens to music, munches on fish snacks and Arab pastries and drinks fruit juice, Ahmed Marcouch, the district's 38-year-old mayor, holds a speech. He talks about progress and mutual understanding between different ethnic communities. At the end of his talk, Marcouch poses for pictures with an attractive young woman wearing a headscarf.

The festival and the speech are nice gestures, but atypical. Normally life in Slotervaart isn't nearly as convivial as the speakers paint it. Crime and unemployment are significantly higher than the national average, and one in three of the neighborhood's young people are high-school dropouts.

Ahmed Marcouch grew up in this environment, but he has since made a better life for himself. He was illiterate when he came to the Netherlands from Morocco at the age of 10, but he was lucky enough to encounter a teacher at a progressive Montessori school who helped him get on track.

A Different World

There is little evidence of Amsterdam's typical charm in Slotervaart, a neighborhood where bleak concrete apartment blocks cluster around a futuristic-looking town hall. Almost half of Slotervaart's 45,000 residents are foreign immigrants, and it is not uncommon to see eight-member families living in cramped, 50-square-meter (540-square-foot) apartments. And it's perhaps no coincidence that the police station is across the street from the mosque.

Immigrants from Turkey or the former Dutch colony of Suriname are not the ones that keep the police on their toes. The "problem" immigrants in Slotervaart come from Morocco, not from major cities but from villages in the High Atlas and Rif Mountains. They live here in their own world, eating couscous with lamb's brain salad, watching Al-Jazeera and attending the mosque on Fridays. There is little pressure to conform to Dutch customs and lifestyles.

This parallel world of immigrants is relatively apolitical. Nevertheless, living together with other ethnic groups has proven to be a challenge for Slotervaart's Moroccan immigrants. But for Hassan al-Maghroubi, originally from the town of Oujda near the Algerian border, all the talk about ethnic tensions is nothing but unfounded agitation. "What are we doing that's so dangerous?" he asks. "Sometimes we stuff potatoes in our neighbors' exhaust pipes, or we steal oranges from some street trader. But otherwise we don't bother anyone here."

Hassan is one of what the Dutch call "hangjongeren" ("guys who hang out") -- unemployed men with no prospects of getting jobs. Nevertheless, he says, he feels at home here. "Dit is mijn landje, ik ben een rasechte Nederlander," he says in Dutch: "This is my country. I'm a purebred Dutchman."

A Shift in Mood

Slotervaart's most prominent son is former Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok, who can sometimes be spotted in the morning riding his bike down to the train station along Pieter Calandlaan. Kok, a member of the left-learning Labor Party (PvdA), lives here because he wanted to set an example. But his political adversaries on the right call it a pointless experiment in multiculturalism. The neighborhood, they argue, is contaminated beyond repair.

Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered in Amsterdam on Nov. 2, 2004, sparking massive tensions over immigrants in The Netherlands.

Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of eccentric filmmaker and provocateur Theo van Gogh, lived in Overtoomse Veld, not far from Kok's house. Bouyeri was born in Amsterdam, a second-generation immigrant. Like many Dutchmen, he rode his bicycle and loved to eat traditional Dutch stews. He couldn't have been more Dutch, but he got caught up in the radical Islamist movement nonetheless.

Van Gogh's murder marked a turning point in Holland's warm and fuzzy take on democracy. Until then, the Dutch were accustomed to looking generously the other way when it came to a wide range of abuses. The approach even had a name: the gedogen principle. The untranslatable word gedogen refers to the Dutch practice of turning a blind eye to things which are officially illegal but tolerated, such as soft drugs and euthanasia. Under the gedogen principle, anything went. The fact that some Muslim men beat their wives was tolerated, as was the selling of polemic texts -- which encouraged believers to stone women who committed adultery and throw homosexuals from tall buildings -- at the Al Tawheed Mosque on Jan Hanzenstraat.

Taking a Hard Line

But since the Van Gogh murder, the gedogen principle no longer applies -- at least in Slotervaart, a change that is in no small part due to the mayor's efforts. Marcouch, a former police officer, experienced at first hand the unrest that followed the Van Gogh murder. He wasn't a softie like some of his colleagues, who routinely looked the other way when rowdy mobs swaggered through the streets. He took a hard line when he believed it was necessary, which was the case more often than not. And a tougher police approach is suddenly popular with the no-longer-quite-so-relaxed Dutch.

The government of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende insists that it will fight lawlessness in the suburbs and will no longer tolerate foreign-born hate preachers in the country's mosques. But it has done little so far to make good on its promises.

Marcouch, on the other hand, is doing something. He has instructed his officials to conduct one-on-one interviews with young unemployed residents to help them find ways to make a fresh start. Especially tough cases are referred directly to Marcouch.

Although he has no authority over the Amsterdam police force, Marcouch has set up a rapid response team of social workers which constantly patrols the streets on bicycles to defuse hostilities and catch young criminals red-handed.

Marcouch's brief tenure to date has already left its mark in Slotervaart, where the crime rate has dropped and there is significantly less trash on the streets. "When there's a lack of cooperation, we have to give them a bit of a push -- with force, if necessary," he says.

Making a Deal

A Moroccan mother paid Marcouch a visit last week. The story she told was heartbreaking. Her son, she said, was completely out of control, constantly getting into fights and stealing, with no prospects of landing a job. He had become too much to handle, she told Marcouch.

The mayor had the boy brought to his office. Towering in front of him like some drill sergeant facing an unruly recruit, he shouted: "We're going to make a deal, my friend. I find you an apprenticeship, and you become a decent citizen. If you don't shape up, you'll find yourself in jail. You give me a headache and I'll show you what a headache is."

Marcouch says that he wants to use educational methods to help reintegrate young offenders back into society. Part of his plan is to provide them with job training in prison. Those who complete the training courses successfully are released early, while those who fail the course must serve their entire sentence.

When his tough cop approach doesn't work, Marcouch attempts to convince the Moroccan immigrants to abandon their self-imposed isolation. "Look at me," he tells them. "I am a Muslim, but I am also a Dutchman. This country is your home, too. You have a good life here, and you have freedom." The son of immigrants himself, all Marcouch wants from the children of other immigrants is that they accept Dutch culture. For Marcouch, tolerance is a two-way street: Just as the majority accept the minority, the minority should also tolerate the majority.

In addition to his mayoral duties, Marcouch serves as the district chairman of the PvdA. The position is unlikely to represent the high-water mark of his political career: Eight out of ten citizens in the Netherlands believe that there is a place in Dutch politics for people like Marcouch.

But not a few of Marcouch's fellow Moroccans in the area, which is known locally as Little Morocco, consider the mayor a turncoat. Two 11-year-old boys recently accosted him as he was walking through his community, calling him a "chaïn" -- Arabic for "traitor."

Marcouch was furious. When he managed to catch one of the boys, he took hold of his chin and pulled the boy towards him, glaring at him and barking in Dutch, "sukkel" -- "loser."

He refused to admonish the children for calling him a "traitor," considering it beneath him. But it didn't mean the insult didn't hurt.

Source: Spiegel (English), h/t internation's musings

Sweden: Fears of becoming a terrorist base

Last year the Swedish Security Service (Säkerhetspolisen - SÄPO) recommended that 65 people be prevented from either entering Sweden or remaining in the country on the grounds that they posed a security risk.

This was the highest annual total since the September 11th attacks in 2001.

The majority of suspects - 40 of whom were asylum seekers - were thought to have links to terrorist organizations, Svenska Dagbladet reports.

"There is almost never a suggestion of terrorist operations being carried out in Sweden, rather it is a case of people being involved in activities that support terrorism abroad," SÄPO's Lars Kronberg told the newspaper.

In most cases the Swedish Board of Migration and the government choose to act on SÄPO's recommendations and reject the applications in question.

But the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights has criticized SÄPO's methods, claiming that Sweden may be acting in breach of European and UN human rights conventions.

According to human rights lawyer Anna Wigenmark, those whose applications are rejected are not provided with sufficient legal protection, as much of the evidence against them remains classified.

"It doesn't take much for someone to be regarded as a security threat," she told Svenska Dagbladet.

While Lars Kronberg conceded that SÄPO required less evidence than it would for criminal cases, he added that the investigations on which the decisions were made were "very thorough"

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Sweden's security service, Säpo, has warned that the country risks becoming a base for recruitment of terrorists. At least 20 Swedes have been arrested around the world on suspicion of terror offences since 2001.

"There is a risk of Sweden becoming a recruiting base for terrorists, and a base for the financing and planning of attacks in other countries," said Säpo's information director, Anders Thornberg, to Svenska Dagbladet.

The paper said that nearly all Swedes arrested had suspected links to Islamic extremists. So far, only two people have been convicted under the 2003 Swedish terror laws.

Source: The Local 1, 2 (English)

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Copenhagen: Pakistani witnesses disappear

Three witnesses in a sensational murder case have disappeared without a trace. The three men arrived in Copenhagen on Saturday from Pakistan accompanied by two Danish police officers and a translator and took residence at a hotel. On Sunday the witnesses left the hotel, leaving their passport and luggage.

The three witnesses were supposed to be examined in Copenhagen's city court regarding the murder of a 37 year old woman in Pakistan by her 51 year old Danish-Pakistani husband in 1988. But the police have no idea where they are now.

Deputy Police Inspector Niels Larsen says that they don't know where they are. They might have gotten cold feet or used the chance to seek their luck either in Denmark or elsewhere in Europe.

The police are concerned about the witnesses' safety. Larsen says that they are no concrete suspicions but the police would like to know that they are alive and well.

The police had interviewed 15 witnesses in April, when 14 witnesses from Pakistan and one from Italy came to Copenhagen. Then everything had gone as planned. The three new witnesses appeared when Danish police was recently in Pakistan to investigate the murder case. They had come to Copenhagen at the police's expense to be first examined by the police and therefore appear in court.

The state prosecutor hadn't decided yet if the 51 year old will be indicted for the murder.

Source: Jyllands-Posten (Danish)

Denmark: Kids abducted

With the summer almost over, classroom across the country will soon be filled again with children. But some students never show up after vacation. There are abducted to a land far away from Denmark or foced to be "re-educated" in the parents' homeland.

According to the Citizen's Service at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 54 children are currently abroad against their will. 42 of them had been abducted by one of their parents. This year 7 children had been abducted from Denmark.

12 children are thought to be sent to their parent's homeland to go to school or live by the family as a way of re-educating the children. There are cases that the Danish authorities are not aware of. The Citizen's Service first hears of children when the parents of the abducted kids ask for help to get their son or daughter back home. Or when the social authorities notice that the kids don't show up at school after the summer holiday. It also happens that the children themselves manage to contact the Danish embassy abroad.

Turkey is among the countries that has both abducted children and children who have been taken out of Danish schools in order to be re-educated at Turkish ones.

According to ambassador Kim Jørgensen there has been an increase in the number of hard consular cases, for instance child abductions, spouse dumping, forced marriages or re-education tours. There are 10-15 cases of this type a year, with child abductions being high on the list.

The increase, together with an increase in the total number of Danish tourists to Turkey means that the Danish embassy in Ankara has been assigned an extra worker.

Jørgensen doesn't know whether there really is an increase in the number of such cases, or is people are now more aware that the embassy can help them.

Most of the children who are abducted from Denmark, get to Turkey, Algeria, Syria, Jordan, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon or Somalia.

For example, a 45 year old father from Vollsmose traveled in mid-July to Syria with his two sons of 3 and 1.3 years.

The citizen's service helps first and foremost with finding the children, but also with getting a lawyer, managing with the authorities in the country in question, mediating between the parents and finally taking care of bring the children home.

But according to Uffe Wolffhechel of the Citizens' Service, many of these cases take a long time, and some do not get close to being solved before the child gets to the age of majority.

Source: Politiken (Danish)

Denmark: Asylum seekers attempting suicide in order to be accepted

According to an anonymous official at the integration ministry, who daily handles applications from rejected asylum seekers, suicide attempts are a decisive argument when deciding to give humanitarian residency permits.

According to recent statistics by the Danish Refugee Council, since 2001 the number of suicide attempts among Danish asylum seekers have tripled.

Peter Engholm Jensen, who has seen several examples when he was head of the asylum center at Kongelunden, says it is problematic because suicide attempts continue to be a last resort that asylum seekers follow in desperation to get humanitarian residence permits. Residents of the center say that it helps others in their attempt to get a residence permit when it says that there was a suicide attempt. It is a cry for help when they attempt to commit suicide at ten to twelve when they have an appointment at twelve. They don't want to do it, they want to get a residence permit. But, he says, what starts as a strategy can end in chronic illness. There's no motivation to fight against it.

Head of the asylum department by the Danish Red Cross, Jørgen Chemnitz, has similar experiences. He stresses that it's not an issue of a planned strategy, but rather a desperate cry for help, that for many asylum seekers ends in serious mental disorders. In the worse cases, with death as a consequence.

He says it starts with a simulation, but it ends in a serious reality. These aren't people who trick and cheat, but rather people in deep distress and powerlessness, who use the only means they have.

Søren Krarup of the Danish People's Party doesn't think that the increase in suicide attempts should change the regulations regarding residence permits. He says it is the asylum seekers themselves who bear the responsibility for getting seriously mentally ill while they wait in Danish asylum centers.

He says that if a suicide attempt is a method which rejected asylum seekers use to get their will then it is certainly a dubious suicide attempt. He says he is upset at the people who refuse to go home when they are rejected. They drive themselves and their children into mental illness.

One example of such a case is a woman from Iran who got a residence permit for humanitarian reasons in 2005 on the grounds that the ministry stressed that she had psychotic symptoms, that she had tried to commit suicide by hanging two times since the summer of 2004 and that due to this she had been confined to a psychiatric department.

Source: Politiken (Danish)

Netherlands: Government discussion partner has ties to Muslim Brotherhood

A former company building in Zaandam, under the smoke of a chocolate factory, looks ready for demolition. On the first floor there's a neat room: a spotless carpet, big conference tables and a full bookcase. The glass doors offer a look at the Dutch branch of the most powerful Muslim movement in the world: the Muslim Brotherhood. A sign is missing, like the motto of these fundamentalists: Allah is our goal, the Koran is our constitution.

A. Hijzelendoorn of Amsterdam, the owner of the building, is surprised at the tenants: "sometimes they come here in the evenings with big groups of children, it then looks like a school. And a few times per month there are gatherings. Their leader came to me recently: if he can buy the whole building. Financing was not a problem he said, since there's a big sponsor in England."

The man who came with the proposition was Yahiya Bouyafa (45), a Dutch-Moroccan who is steadily getting more and more influence within the Muslim community. His sponsor is the Europe Trust in Birmingham, according to intelligence services the financial vehicle of the Muslim Brotherhood. The Palestinian Hamas, the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and Al-Qaeda all sprouted from the Brotherhood.

De Telegraaf revealed in march that prominent leaders of the movement are pulling the string behind the scenes in the two biggest mosque organizations in the Netherlands, the Moroccan Essalam in Rotterdam and the Turkish Milli Görüs, who is building the disputed Wester Mosque in Amsterdam.

Bouyafa, who lives in IJsselstein, is the 'big man' behind several Brotherhood related organizations in the Netherlands. He is president of the Europe Trust Nederland foundation and the Federation of Islamic organizations in the Netherlands (Federatie Islamitische Organisaties Nederland). According to the regulations of both institutes there is a very close relationship with the Europe Trust in Birmingham. The company building in Zaandam is the Dutch base camp.

Bouyafa has recently been appointed the new chairman of Contact Groep Islam. In January 2005 this group was recognized by minister of integration Verdonk as a discussion partner with the government. This was following a study in which the group was described as a "solid organization with a following of about 150,000 Muslims in the Netherlands."

Bouyafa is the successor of the known "TV imam" Abdullah Haselhoef, who recently dramatically announced his emigration to Germany. Haselhoef fled Krabbendijke after a series of destructions and vandalisms. This week he says that he fled out of necessity but that an experienced man is replacing him for consultations with the government. Bouyafa was also on the Dutch Muslim Council for a time. Haselhoef says he doesn't know of any ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The new consultation partner of minister Ella Vogellar came up already several times in investigations of the intelligence services on branches of the Muslim Brotherhood. In secret reports, seen by De Telegraaf, Bouyafa comes up like a spider in the web of the fundamental movement that wants to implement the strict Islamic sharia law.

In the recent row about the statements of Vogelaar about Islam, Boyafa appeared for the first time on the scene as the successor of Haselhoef. The PvdA minister said in the Trouw newspaper that Netherlands would get an Islamic tradition in addition to the Judeo-Christian one. Bouyafa couldn't' agree more with her. "Her approach is correct. Muslims are a part of Dutch society. That you can't deny. You shouldn't make a monster of Islam."

Vogelaar's action fit into Bouyafa's and the Muslim Brotherhood's pursuit to come to "a organized infrastructure", the intelligence report says.

Bouyafa played an important role within a conservative Moroccan mosque organization that initiated the vision of Vogelaar years ago. As chairman of the mosque in his town Ijsselstein, Bouyafa met these conservatives and was secretary of their foundation.

"The foundation wants to promote that Islam will occupy its own place equally next to Christianity and Judaism in Dutch society," according to an intelligence report.

Bouyafa - not available for comment since he's on vacation in Morocco this week - comes from the Berber town Boubker-Oudja, on the border with Algeria. He originally lived in Eindhoven, where he was secretary of the Foundation of Islamic Elementary Schools in 1987, which is tightly coupled with the disputed Al-Fourkaan mosque. In the beginning of the 90s he moved to IJsselstein to almost directly become the leader of the local mosque. He also managed for some time 'Pizzeria Grillroom Dame Bianca' in Utrecht.

Together with his son Bouyafa, as owner of the Noer Al'ilm publishing company, he published a series of Muslim books, among them the standard work of Sheik Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, an ideologist of the Muslim Brotherhood. Every now and then Bouyafa comments on the Sheik's website, as a Dutch Muslim leader. The sheik is persona-non-grata in the US where he's seen as a "theologist of terror".

Bouyafa worked actively in building up on the Muslim Brotherhood in the Netherlands. As well as leading the institutes in Zaandam, he holds a top function in the League of the Islamic Community in the Hague. The founding of the League did not go by unnoticed by the intelligence services, as appeared from the introduction to the report: A very good introduced source came with the report that the League could be a umbrella of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Netherlands."

Bouyafa's co-director of the League is Syrian Ibrahim Akkari - according to intelligence sources he's active in the PvdA. Akkari was director of of the Rotterdam foundation Al-Aqsa, that was put on the terror list in 2003 due to given aid to the Hamas.

A former director of the League, Jordanian Rashad al-Baz from Vlaardingen, was treasurer of Al-Aqsa. Akkar and al-Baz were both connected to known members of the Hofstad Group, according to the intelligence services.

But Bouyafa is connected in yet another way to Hamas activists and fund-raisers. The executive director of the Europe Trust in Birmingham, the boss of Bouyafa's branch in Zaandam, is also the leading figure of Interpal in England. This organization has been considered by the US and Israel as terror financier.

Till recently a company was registered at Akkaris' personal address of an man who also played an important role in the top ranks of the Europe Trust. This is Sheik Al-Hajeri from Kuwait, who is the vice president of the Kuwait Joint Relief Committee - an assistance organization that is suspected in the US of having possible ties to Al-Qaeda.

Against this background, the Muslim Brotherhood has worked an expanding its influence in the Netherlands. The most recent yearly report of the Europe Trust reports of a planned acquisition of the company complex in Zaandam. The fund works further to start up projects in Utrecht and Eindhoven. The goal: "the promotion of education and social welfare".

The assumption in the intelligence world is that on the long term the Brotherhood is out to get more power for Muslims. The AIVD spoke in a public report at the end of 2004 of "secret, non-violent strategies" on an international level.

"By these strategies it's been chosen not to come to a direct, violent confrontation with the government authorities, but to gradually undermine them by entering and finally taking over the civil service, the judiciary, the educational institutions and the local governments."

The AIVD also observed possible threatening activities for the Netherlands, "Addressed at a concealed entry policy in politics and social institutions."

Sources: De Telegraaf (translated from Open Source Intelligence) (Dutch)

See also: Netherlands: Muslim Brotherhood have ties with Hofstad Group, Netherlands: Mosques under Muslim Brotherhood control, Netherlands: A Judeo-Christian-Muslim state, AIVD Report: From Dawa to Jihad (pdf, Dutch)

To My Readers

For almost two years now I've been bringing you news about the Muslim community in Europe. Though many of my posts are translations from the popular news media, I also read up on the current research and debate. Some books and studies I have summarized here on my blog, others have given me new insights into the news I bring.

This blog is a hobby and I enjoy the hours I put into it. The internet enables me free access to news and a free site to post my blog. My main problem is acquiring the books I would like to read.

I recently acquired several new books such as 'Londonistan', 'Western Muslims and the Future of Islam' and 'Muslims in Western Europe'. However, there are many more books I would like to read. Some of the books on my wish list are: 'While Europe Slept', 'Islam - Europe's Second Religion' and 'The Islamic Challenge', as well as 'Marokkanendrama', 'Undercover in Klein Marokko' and 'Islamister og Naivister', among others.

Reading these books is important to me, as they give me a broader perspective on the topics I write about as well as access to data about the Muslim communities in Europe. This directly affects the reliability of my posts.

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Lebanon: Hassan Nasrallah wants to move to Belgium

Last summer, during the Israel-Hizbullah war, the Israeli army arrested a Lebanese store owner by the name of Hassan Nasrallah, together with four other family members. After 21 days in captivity he was finally released to the International Red Cross and brought back home.

In a recent interview with the Assafir newspaper in Lebanon and the Al-Bayan newspaper in the UAE, Nasrallah describes his experiences. During his captivity he was questioned five hours a day. He says he was not tortured, but that he was psychologically pressured and the soldiers had told him Lebanon had been destroyed by nuclear weapons. He also declares his wish to emigrate, to Belgium.

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Now, a year after the war, all Nasrallah wants is to leave Lebanon and start a new life abroad. "I'm tired," he says. "I want to emigrate. My heart is in Lebanon, but the civil war is difficult. I want to emigrate to Belgium." His 13-year old son, Muhammad, has a completely different future in mind for himself. He dreams of signing up to the Lebanese army in order to fight Israel, which he whole-heartedly loathes.

Source: NRG (Hebrew)

Norway: Muslim cemetery only for city residents

The church in Drammen rejects Muslims from other municipalities who wish to be buried in the Muslim cemetery in Skoger. The Muslim cemetery was set up seven years ago. It is now so full that the church decided in April that only Muslims from the municipality will be buried there.

Churchwarden Ivar Nygård says priority should be given to their own residents.

Six people were buried in the cemetery in 2005, and 14 in 2006. The cemetery lies in its own separate area with the graves facing Mecca.

Nygård says that some immigrants also bury relatives there, rather then sending them to their homeland, but he says there are no plans to enlarge the cemetery since there is still enough place for several more years.

Source: NRK (Norwegian)