VVD leader Mark Rutte, as Secretary of State for Social Affairs, has encouraged municipalities to racial discrimination. This judgment has been handed down by the court of Haarlem on a call from Rutte.

In early 2003, he asked municipalities to additionally check residents of Somali descent for assistance fraud. A spokesman for the Ministry of Social Affairs confirmed a report about this in the SPD newspapers on Saturday.

In 2003, Rutte was Secretary of State in that department. He then advised the municipalities to trace the approximately 25,000 Somali inhabitants and to check for possible fraud. Some cases of fraud were triggered in which Somali people who had found work in the United Kingdom were wrongly receiving assistance in the Netherlands.

According to the court in Haarlem, Rutte's request to the municipalities was discriminatory and contrary to the Constitution. The court speaks of “discrimination on grounds of race, because it concerns a group of people of Somali origin, irrespective of the nationality of the persons concerned”.

In a letter at the time Secretary of State Rutte advised how municipalities could identify residents of Somali origin by searching for the birthplace of their inhabitants. If these people were also in the assistance, the municipality was advised to check them extra.

The court in Haarlem gave the ruling in a case brought by a Somali man who was checked for fraud after being held in the street by social detectives on the grounds of external characteristics. The man then refused to give detectives access to his home, after which he lost his benefit. He fought this and now he's right from the judge.

Reaction from Rutte
Mark Rutte believes that municipalities should be able to conduct targeted investigations into fraud among population groups. Rutte said Saturday in a response to a ruling of the court in Haarlem.“Apparently that is now legally not possible to do research on colour or origin. It is high time to change the law.”