A man wearing a t-shirt commemorating Mitch Henriquez. Demotix/Jaap Arriens. All rights reserved.Despite the murder of Aruban-born Mitch Henriquez by police late last June in The Hague, the Netherlands has largely been ignored by the international press. Nonetheless, the event is important because it is symptomatic of a broader international trend towards an ever-increasing level of police violence against minorities in the western world. The kind of violence which led to the death of Henriquez is similar to that which led to the demise of Eric Garner. Official reports from the Dutch public prosecution department suggest that the cause of Henriquez’ death was asphyxiation. Suffocation seems to have become a popular means of police repression internationally. The bodies on which such lethal techniques are used are mostly male and of colour.
The case of racial police profiling in the Netherlands has taken on a dangerous dimension. An Amnesty International report published in October 2013 demonstrates that what Dutch enforcement officers categorise as “suspicious behaviour” is strongly correlated to specific ethnic characteristics. “This suspicious profile [verdacht profiel] is related to characteristics such as age, colour of skin and ethnic origins. Police officers consider young men with dark skin – and people from Central and Eastern Europe – as especially ‘suspicious’… According to [Amnesty’s] research, these are the features that characterise the dominant stereotypical mode of thinking of police forces.” Such findings correspond to written accounts of racism given by former police officers. Speaking during a TV interview in 2010, the current district police officer of The Hague implied that certain peoples are culturally and/or genetically more inclined to violent forms of behaviours.
Interviewer (Anil Ramdas): Why is it that Dutch nationals with a Moroccan heritage [in Dutch often problematically grouped together under the label of “Moroccans”] are often involved in criminal behaviour? Is this a cultural phenomenon? Or does this relate to other causes? What do you think?
