(NL Times) The municipality of Almere violated Muslims’ fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of religion with its secret infiltration of mosques a few years ago, the ombudsman of the Amsterdam metropolitan region said in a report published on Tuesday. The ombudsman called Almere “seriously negligent” towards the Muslim community, NOS reports.
In 2021, around ten municipalities, including Almere, hired the private investigative agency NTA to investigate mosques due to concerns about radicalization among Salafist Muslims. They did so on the advice of the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV). At the end of 2021, NRC revealed the NTA’s working methods, including sending investigators to infiltrate mosques and collect data from mosque-goers without their knowledge. A year later, NRC revealed that then NCTV boss and now Prime Minister Dick Schoof was aware of concerns about the NTA’s methods but failed to do anything about it.
