Amsterdam fails radical youth: Leiden prof.

A researcher from the University of Leiden has said that Amsterdam is failing in its handling of radicalizing youth who want to travel to Syria to take part in the war there.

“A lot has been cut back on the past couple of years; radicalizing became less of a priority. It wasn’t visible as much, existed skin deep and thus slipped off the political agenda,” professor and terrorism researcher Edwin Bakker said according to AD newspaper.

As a result at least ten young people were able to slip away to Syria the past couple of months, without intervention from the city. In some cases authorities had even been given signals.

AD mentions a young man who was under the care of social worker Fatima Zohra-Hadjar; the young man gave his consent for the social worker to report in the summer of 2013 that he was planning to go. “Nothing happened. In February the city took action when the Amsterdam West parish sounded the alarm, but by then he had vanished for several months already.”

And Farid, whose 16-year-old son was radicalizing sought contact with authorities. “I asked a police officer and an adviser on radicalization matters to take his passport, but they said he could keep it and that he would give it to me voluntarily. He was gone the next day.”

Bakker: “Politically Syria-goers have become an important subject and thus civil servants cramp up.”