Observers will see A'dam cops doing searches well, Minister says

Minister Ferd Grapperhaus thinks that the observers in Amsterdam who watch the preventive frisking in the capital will not find any wrongdoing. "I have every confidence that you will see that they do it well," said the caretaker justice minister. "Come and have a look, I'd say."

Amsterdam wants to send observers along as an experiment to see whether the police discriminate in weapons checks. This was criticized by Amsterdam politicians, because it would show distrust of the police. However, it was a wish of the Amsterdam city council," emphasized Grapperhaus.

The Minister would not say whether he thinks the experiment is necessary or desirable. "Let me put it differently. I really vouch for the integrity that is always of paramount importance to our police." According to him, therefore, police officers have little to fear from the observers.

There has been discussion for some time about the extent to which the police are guilty of ethnic profiling. According to Grapperhaus, there are international rules and the police adhere to them. He also has no fundamental objections to preventive frisking.

On the other hand, the number of complaints that the police received about ethnic profiling in 2020 was significantly higher than in 2019. The National Ombudsman Reinier van Zupthen said in an interview with the AD in March that ethnic profiling by the Dutch government is a problem, and that complaints about this are not taken seriously enough.