Man sues Dutch state for unjust placement on terrorism watch list

A Dutch man is suing the Dutch state and National Police for unjustly placing him on a terrorism watchlist and unlawfully sharing his data with other countries. He has been experiencing problems at border crossings worldwide for years even though he has never been a suspect in any crime, NRC reports.

Given the association with terrorism, Omar asked that NRC not use his surname. His problems started in 2019 when he tried to travel to Turkey with his wife and father-in-law. The guards at the Bulgarian-Turkish border shouted “no entry Turkey” at him and sent him back to Bulgaria on foot. In 2020 he filed a lawsuit against the entry ban in Turkey. The court ruled against him, but the verdict did reveal that the Dutch department of Interpol distributed a message about him in 2015, saying that he could travel “to participate in the conflicts in Syria.”

Omar then submitted requests for information to the Dutch police. It took until February 2023 before the police informed him that he was on the police’s list of possible jihadists from 2015 to 2017. In July last year, Justice Minister Dilan Yesilgöz acknowledged that the Dutch authorities shared this “LOP list” with the United States for years. Dozens of Dutch people were on that list without any concrete suspicions against them.

The police did not say with which countries it shared this information, so he submitted another request for information. In August, the police informed him that they shared the list with the US and Turkey. After a third request for information, Omar found out in January that at least 32 countries had received incriminating information about him.

“The fact that I have the label of a potential terrorist drives me completely crazy,” Omar told NRC. As far as he can tell, he was added to the LOP list because he visited the same mosque as some suspected jihadists. The Dutch authorities removed him from the list in 2017, but he still can’t enter Turkey and still gets questioned at every other border crossing.

Omar's lawyers, Tom de Boer and Emiel Jurjens of Prakken d'Oliveira, told the newspaper that he is suing the Dutch State and National Police for compensation and “active assistance” in removing his data from the systems of all “third states” they shared it with. He also asks for “acute assistance” if he runs into problems again while traveling.

The young father is the first Dutch person to initiate legal proceedings, but law firm Prakken d’Oliveira also represents nine other victims encountering similar problems. “The government is doing little to help them, which means that more lawsuits will probably follow,” the lawyers said.