Dutch border police should be able to continue stopping travellers for identity checks on the basis of their ethnicity, a district court in the Hague ruled today.
It threw out a legal challenge brought by Amnesty International and black Dutch citizens to the Marechaussee frontier police’s mobile security surveillance unit, known as MTV.
Formal border checks cannot be carried out within the European Union but police controls to prevent illegal residence in the Netherlands, or other countries, are permitted.
The Dutch court defined ethnicity as “unchangeable physical characteristics, especially skin colour or race” and gave approval for continued checks as long as other “risk indicators” were involved in the decision to stop a traveller. The indicators used by the Dutch, French, German and other border police forces include ethnicity, the composition of a group of travellers, their behaviour, use of language or appearance, and travel routes.
“The mere fact that ethnicity plays a role in the context of MTV is not by definition discriminatory and can therefore not constitute grounds for a general ban,” said the judicial ruling. “Being able to establish nationality is of major importance for the effectiveness of the MTV, because it can determine a person’s residence status. Ethnic appearance is not a necessary indication, but can be an objective one, of someone’s origin or nationality.”
Black and Asian travellers are often “taken out of the line” at international airports, train stations and in random road checks across Europe, often creating frustration among European citizens or residents who feel they are unfairly targeted. A report by the EU’s human rights agency this year found that police were more than twice as likely to search or ask ethnic minorities for their identity papers than white Europeans.
The Dutch police attracted controversy last year for a “predictive policing” project that used algorithms to screen surveillance camera footage to pick out Eastern European crime gangs.
Mpanzu Bamenga, a black Dutch resident and former municipal councillor in Eindhoven, was one those who brought the discrimination case to the courts after being repeatedly stopped while travelling across the border.
“It happened when I came from Rome to Eindhoven airport. I was stopped and asked questions. The fact that I had a non-Dutch appearance was the deciding factor,” he told the NOS broadcaster. “I studied in Brussels and travelled up and down by car. When there were checks, I was always stopped.”
Bamenga, whose family fled the Congo region to escape massacres in 1994, said that the “humiliating” checks risked alienating minorities in the Netherlands. “Ethnic profiling is stigmatising and bad for our society. It damages people’s trust in the government,” he added.
Amnesty International said it would appeal against the ruling on the grounds that it breaches the Dutch constitution. “By ruling that police can target people based on skin colour and race, the court has allowed a practice that is in clear violation of the prohibition against discrimination,” said Dagmar Oudshoorn, director of Amnesty’s Dutch branch.
www.thetimes.co.uk
