discrimination

A 24-year-old Dutch-Chinese woman was attacked in the elevator on the way to her student flat in Tilburg after she asked a group of young people to stop singing a racist song about the coronavirus at her. Cindy was left with a concussion and several cuts, she said to RTL Nieuws.

Higher education students in Rotterdam were accused on Friday of sharing disturbing images and statements in chat groups, including material which was racist, anti-Semitic, and sexually offensive or harassing. The Hogeschool Rotterdam (HR) said the chat messages were shared in several education-related groups connected to the college and to the Erasmus University.

“We are very shocked by the cross-border nature of the messages,” said HR board chair Ron Bormans. “This behavior completely contravenes our norms and values ​​and is not tolerated by our applied sciences university.”

A healthcare company from Noord-Brabant was ordered to pay 10 thousand euros in damages to a temporary employee by the court in Eindhoven early this month. The court considered it proven that company OOK Begeleiding did not extend the woman's temporary contract because she was pregnant. The company explicitly stated this on paper, RTL Nieuws reports.

Dutch law prohibits companies from using pregnancy as a reason to not extend a temporary contract. Though as employers do not have to give a reason if a temporary contract is not renewed, this could still happen.

KLM issued an apology on Friday after a note posted on a toilet door on a flight from Amsterdam to Seoul caused an online uproar earlier this week. The note stated only in Korean that the toilet was only for cabin crew use. When a passenger asked about this, they were told that the note was hung as a precaution against the coronavirus 2019-nCoV, NU.nl reports.

The passenger snapped a picture of the note and posted it on social media, after which the hashtag #BoycottKLM was trending in Korea. 

Vocational high school graduates with an ethnic minority background are still struggling more to find work than their counterparts with a Dutch-background, according to a study by SEO Economic Research. One year after graduation, students with an ethnic minority background are 20 percent less likely to have a job. In addition to factors like study choice and family situation, the researchers believe that discrimination plays a role NOS reports.

FvD leader Thierry Baudet said that he was "too quick, and too firm" with posts on social media on Friday, in which he said that "Moroccans" were harassing two female passengers on a train. The "Moroccans" turned out to be NS employees and a police officer in civilian clothing, checking the two women's tickets. The police are looking into whether they will press charges against the populist politician, a spokesperson for the National Unit said to RTL Nieuws.

Rail company NS denied a claim FvD leader Thierry Baudet posted on social media about female passengers being "seriously harassed by four Moroccans on a train" on Friday evening. According to the rail company, Baudet's "Moroccans" were NS employees and a police officer checking the two women's tickets, NOS reports.

Multiple Dutch right-wing extremists were active for years on an international, fascist web forum that is linked to a violent neo-Nazi group and a number of murders in the United States, AD reports based on countless messages posted on the closed forum Iron March which hackers released late last year. The Dutch AD identified tried to set up a new organization in the Netherlands, and raged against gay people, Jews and Muslims.

The Justice and Security Inspectorate is launching an "exploratory investigation" into the working methods and mutual relationships within two police departments that form part of the National Unit of the National Police. The Inspectorate received signals about possible abuses within these departments, including about "unprofessional practices", NOS reports.

Young people with a disability such as Down's syndrome are forced to leave school at age 18 in some regions of the Netherlands, while they are legally entitled to education until they are 20, according to a study by Reporter Radio. Special education schools stress that continuing education is crucial for these young people's development, NRC reports.

No charges were filed against an Uber driver accused of discriminating against a gay couple in Amsterdam at the end of the city’s Pride festival in August, the Public Prosecution Service (OM) said on Wednesday, citing a lack of evidence. The two men filed statements against the driver, saying he grew increasingly angry, spat at them, and threw them out of his cab after the men started kissing each other while sitting in the back seat.