Prevention of Right-Wing Extremism, Xenophobia and Racism in ...

Strategies for combating prejudice, discrimination, racism and right-wing extremism
Since the 1980’s combating discrimination and racism has constituted an important part of
Dutch policy. This policy rests on three pillars: legislation, a thorough infrastructure, and the
combination of a concerned government and an involved social midfi eld. In the following these
three pillars are examined and described in more detail.
Legislation
Discrimination has been made punishable in Dutch criminal law. This includes more severe pepe- nalties for offences with discriminatory motives. Criminal prosecution is, however, considered
a last resort. It is primarily used to set clear standards and to respond to glaring violations
and indictable offences. It clearly sets out how the police and the Public Prosecutor are to deal
with cases in which discrimination may have played a role.
In addition to these amendments amendments to the criminal law, the same policies have been taken up
in the the civil law. This law is of great importance because it implies that institutions must protect
everyone who falls under their jurisdiction from discrimination. Schools and youth centres for
example are thus required to combat discrimination. For schools these requirements are also
taken up in the Education Act. Schools are required to have a mediator and a complaints com-
mission. Recently they are also required to report complaints of discrimination to Educational
inspectors.
Infrastructure
The Netherlands has an extensive infrastructure focussed on combating discrimination. In
ad dition to organizations explicitly set up for this purpose, numerous organizations consider
com bating discrimination inherent to their activities and goals.
A number of organizations are active on the national level. The Netherlands has diverse
centres of expertise focussed on various grounds of discrimination, such as race, homosexual-
ity, age, sex and handicaps. These NGO’s (Non Governmental Organizations) work together
closely.
In addition to these centres of expertise, numerous other NGO’s actively combat discrimidiscrimi- nation. There are also special governmental organizations such as the Landelijk Expertise
Cen trum Discriminatie van het Openbaar Ministerie (The Public Prosecutor’s National Centre of
Expertise on Discrimination) and the police department’s Landelijk Bureau Discriminatiezaken
(National Bureau of issues regarding Discrimination). In addition, ministries such as those of
education, culture and science, social services, and justice contribute dedicated websites or
distribute information information on their websites among other things.
On the provincial level the migrant support centres are most active. Their mission is to propro- mote a multicultural society and of which they consider the eradication of discrimination to be
an important component.
54 Right-Extremist Sympathies among Adolescents in the Netherlands