Netherlands to send Home thousands of Asylum Seekers by ABC News Online / The Age 7:28am 19th Feb, 2004   18 February , 2004     (ABC News Online: AM. Reporter: Philip Williams)    TONY EASTLEY: In a move that has divided public opinion and tested the nation's image as a tolerant society, the Netherlands plans to send home, forcibly if necessary, thousands of failed asylum seekers. Parliament has approved legislation that will see the repatriation of 26,000 people.    In scenes reminiscent of Australia one asylum seeker has sewn up his eyes and lips in protest.    Europe Correspondent, Philip Williams.    PHILIP WILLIAMS: Despite demonstrations against the new policy, the centre right government was in no mood for compromise. The law covers anyone who arrived in the Netherlands before 1st of April 2001. Around 26,000 rejected asylum seekers can now be held before deportation.    Liberal Party Spokesman Arno Visser supported the change.    ARNO VISSER: Immigration has changed our country dramatically the last couple of years and if you look at the big cities there's a big change in people living in those cities. The problems are getting bigger.    PHILIP WILLIAMS: In Rotterdam, where nearly half the population have a non Dutch heritage, the City Council has already started a very deliberate campaign to make the unwanted arrivals feel even less welcome.    Marco Pastors is on the Rotterdam City Council.    MARCO PASTORS: We are not going to let just anybody in anymore. We want to see is this somebody with a job who already talks the language. Is it somebody that fits in the society that people want.    PHILIP WILLIAMS: And to emphasise that point the Council has imposed a 15 year freeze on the building of any more cheap housing and it's demolishing or refurbishing its existing flats to price poor immigrant tenants out of the market and reduce the stock of social housing.    Daughter of immigrants, Halima Yagoub, says she's afraid she will be forced out of her one bedroom council flat as part of the policy to disperse immigrant communities.    HALIMA YAGOUB: You are here for a long time, you're used to here. I was born in this neighbourhood and I don't going to let them send me away just like that.    PHILIP WILLIAMS: Refugee groups and the Dutch Council of Churches deplore the changes which they argue will penalise already desperate people, and recent polls suggest the majority of the population favour allowing an amnesty for those who have lived in Holland for more than five years, but all that to no avail.    Director of the Dutch Refugee Council, Eduard Nazarski.    EDUARD NAZARSKI: There is now created an atmosphere of panic, just like the sea is invading us, and a flood of foreigners is coming to us and I think this sends, this panic, there's no need for it and it's dangerous.    PHILIP WILLIAMS: But it's also a done deal and the political decision may turn out to be the easy bit. Actually convincing, or perhaps forcing, 26,000 unwilling asylum seekers on a plane or a train back home may be something else altogether.    February 19, 2004    "Dutch vote for mass expulsions" by Ian Black Brussels. (The Age)    The Dutch parliament has approved plans to expel up to 26,000 failed asylum seekers in a move that won praise from the far-right but has sparked protests and threats of hunger strikes.    The plans, which still have to be endorsed by parliament's upper house, would force the failed applicants, many of whom have lived in the Netherlands for years, to leave within three years, while about 2300 others would be granted amnesty.    The potential deportees include Somalis, Afghans and Chechens who may be sent back to countries without a functioning government and still affected by violence. The Government has insisted those genuinely at risk would not be forced to leave.    The lower house on Tuesday rejected amendments that would have softened the mass expulsion plan, presented by the Christian Democrat-led Government. The policy was approved by 83 votes to 57.    The move has dealt a blow to the Netherlands' reputation for tolerance and set a tough benchmark for Europe's asylum policies. Immigration has been hotly debated across Europe in recent years, with centrist parties from Austria to Denmark following an agenda set further to the right.    A weekend opinion poll showed two-thirds of the population favoured an amnesty for asylum seekers who had lived in the Netherlands for more than five years. "Some of these people... have children who were born there and grew up being Dutch. To then push them out of what has become their own country is a monstrosity," said the Society for Threatened Peoples, a European human rights group.    Mass hunger strikes and demonstrations have been threatened in response. One Iranian asylum seeker has sewn up his eyes and mouth in protest. Human Rights Watch said the measure violated international standards.    French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen welcomed the move, which he said "proves that good sense is starting to prevail among European governments". Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk said the policy was "very humane".    The law will affect people who arrived in the country before April 2001. The issue has brought bitter confrontation to Dutch politics, which has been more volatile since the party led by the radical populist Pim Fortuyn burst from nowhere to win second place in the 2002 election. Mr Fortuyn, who highlighted mounting antipathy to Muslims, was assassinated just days before the election.    The coalition Government, led by Jan Pieter Balkenende, has defended its stance by saying the measure was outlined in its election manifesto and that Dutch voters gave it a large majority last year.    A number of deportation centres, where entire families are detained before being forced on to flights home, have already opened.    - agencies    London.February 19, 2004.    "Blair to curb migrants" (The Telegraph / UK)    Britain's cabinet has agreed to emergency measures to curb a possible influx of migrants from eastern Europe when the European Union admits 10 new countries in May. Ministers were summoned to Prime Minister Tony Blair's home midway through the Commons' half-term recess to finalise measures tightening up eligibility to welfare benefits and controlling the inflow of workers.    Britain and Ireland are the only EU countries to allow 73 million people from states such as Poland, Lithuania and the Czech Republic an unrestricted right to work from May 1. Mr Blair has come under strong political pressure from Conservative Party leader Michael Howard to follow other major EU states in limiting work and benefit entitlement for a transitional period.    The Conservatives say the Government is in a mess only weeks before EU enlargement. They have urged introduction of a work permit system that would allow people to come to Britain in a controlled manner.
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