Dutch parliament refused on Thursday Denk Party's request to discuss the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) survey, which found that Muslims in the Netherlands experience discrimination at the highest rate among EU member states.
According to the results of the U.S.-based FRA survey, the Muslim community in the Netherlands is more widely discriminated against than any other Muslim communities in the EU. In response to the results of the survey, the Dutch Denk Party, founded by Dutch-Turks, is seeking to bring the subject to the agenda of parliament. However, the Denk Party's attempts to discuss the issue were rejected in parliament.
Issuing a statement on the issue, Denk Party leader Tunahan Kuzu said that parliament avoids questioning itself and grasps the policy of sliding over these kinds of important issues.
"When there is a violation being committed against human rights in a foreign country, the Dutch parliament discusses it for hours. Yet, when it comes to their own country, they prefer to stay in silence," Kuzu said, adding that parliament members deemed a written evaluation of the survey by letter as an adequate governmental response to the results.
The survey covers the experiences of Muslim immigrants and their EU-born children, revealing that public attitudes toward Muslims have changed little over the last decade. The survey was conducted with 10,527 people who identified themselves as Muslims in 15 EU member states from October 2015 to July 2016. According to the survey results, those who have been discriminated against due to their religion increased from 5 percent to 10 percent in the last five years. However, the Netherlands has the highest in Europe with 30 percent.
The survey found that 39 percent of participants have experienced discrimination in the five years leading up to the survey due to Also, 27 percent of respondents said they know a friend or family member who has been insulted or called names due to ethnicity or immigration status in the year before the survey was taken. In addition, 42 percent of respondents who were stopped by police over the last year claimed they were targeted because of their migrant or ethnic minority background.
The survey also revealed that the vast majority of Muslims in the EU have a high trust in democratic institutions despite experiencing widespread discrimination and harassment. As a matter of fact, 76 percent of respondents said they feel strongly attached to the country they live in. The survey found that "Muslim respondents' trust in public institutions is higher than the trust among the general population. On average, they have the highest level of trust in the police and legal system, followed by the national parliament."
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