‘Racist customs’ approved

Dutch border police can continue to stop travellers for identity checks on the basis of their race, a court in the Hague has ruled.

It threw out a legal challenge brought by Amnesty International and black Dutch citizens against the frontier police’s mobile security surveillance unit, known as MTV.

It defined ethnicity as “unchangeable physical characteristics, especially skin colour”, and gave approval for the 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 forces include ethnicity, the composition of a group of travellers, their behaviour, use of language or appearance, and travel routes.

Mpanzu Bamenga, a black Dutch resident, was shocked by the decision. “I was stopped and questioned. The fact I had a non-Dutch appearance was the deciding factor,” he said.