• Human Rights in The Netherlands

    The influence of the anti-immigrant Freedom Party, which supports the Dutch coalition government, is evident in the country’s migration and asylum policy. During 2011, the government adopted or proposed a raft of measures to restrict the rights of asylum seekers and migrants, including limiting appeal rights for asylum seekers and access to social services for migrants. The leader of the Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, was acquitted in June 2011 of inciting hatred against Muslims and Moroccans. 

  • Russia: Merkel, Rutte Should Press Putin on Rights
    Apr 3, 2013
    The leaders of Germany and the Netherlands should urge President Vladimir Putin of Russia during his upcoming visit to reverse his administration’s crackdown on civil society and erosion of human rights.
  • The Netherlands: Halt Plan to Deport Somalis
    Feb 21, 2013

    The Dutch government should not deport Somalis to any part of south-central Somalia, including Mogadishu, until security improves substantially, and the UN refugee agency has issued new guidelines.

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Netherlands

  • Russia: Merkel, Rutte Should Press Putin on Rights
    Apr 3, 2013
    The leaders of Germany and the Netherlands should urge President Vladimir Putin of Russia during his upcoming visit to reverse his administration’s crackdown on civil society and erosion of human rights.
  • The Netherlands: Halt Plan to Deport Somalis
    Feb 21, 2013

    The Dutch government should not deport Somalis to any part of south-central Somalia, including Mogadishu, until security improves substantially, and the UN refugee agency has issued new guidelines.

  • Divided We Fall: Intolerance in Europe Puts Rights at Risk
    Feb 14, 2013
    An Afghan migrant is stabbed in the heart on the streets of Athens. Black-shirted paramilitaries linked to Hungary’s third-largest political party march through a Roma neighborhood shouting, “You will die here.” A neo-Nazi gang commits a string of murders of Turkish immigrants in Germany. An ideologue driven by hatred of “multiculturalism” kills 67 mostly young people on a Norwegian Island.
  • EU: Human Rights Sidelined Amid Crisis
    Jan 31, 2013
    National and European Union (EU) leaders failed to address serious human rights concerns in the region amid economic and political crisis in 2012, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2013. Human Rights Watch documented human rights concerns in the EU, highlighting events in 10 member states and EU-level developments in migration and asylum, discrimination and intolerance, and counterterrorism policy.
  • EU: Enact Controls on Digital Weapons Trade
    Dec 11, 2012

    The European Union should enact new controls on internet surveillance technologies that have enabled human rights violations. The European Parliament adopted a new digital freedom strategy in EU foreign policy in the plenary on December 11.

  • Netherlands: Joint NGO Letter to Minister Leers
    Apr 2, 2012
    We, the undersigned 5 human rights organizations, are writing to urge you not to return Abu Kurke Kebato, a 23-year-old Ethiopian, and his 21-year-old wife Seena Tafse Mohammed, also an Ethiopian national, to Italy. We understand that both were detained on March 29, 2012 pending deportation to Italy on April 5, 2012.
  • Letter to Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Regarding December 2012 Netherlands Country Report on Iraq
    Mar 8, 2012
    While Human Rights Watch appreciates your government’s discussion of Iraqis identifying as LGBT in the report, we are concerned that the section downplays the severe challenges and risks faced by the LGBT community in Iraq.
  • EU: Rights Abuse at Home Ignored
    Jan 22, 2012
    The European Union and member governments proved unwilling to tackle human rights abuse at home during 2011, even as they proclaimed the issue’s importance in inspiring the Arab Spring, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2012.
  • The Netherlands: Transgender Law Violates Rights
    Sep 13, 2011

    The Dutch Civil Code violates the human rights of transgender people, and the government should amend it without delay. The government should revise article 28 of the civil code, which requires transgender people to take hormones and undergo surgery to alter their bodies and be permanently and irreversibly sterilized before they can have their gender legally recognized on official documents Human Rights Watch said.

  • Netherlands: Human Rights Watch to Open Amsterdam Office
    Sep 12, 2010
    Human Rights Watch will open a new office in Amsterdam on September 14, 2010, in a move to intensify its advocacy on key human rights issues both in the Netherlands and around the world.
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