Jeanine de Roy van Zuijdewijn on NPO 1 on ‘returners’ from Jihadist war zones
Compared to its European neighbouring countries, the Netherlands undertake relatively few attempts to bring back women and children from Iraq and Syria. De Roy van Zuijdewijn explains why on Dutch NPO 1 radio.
Together with Edwin Bakker and Jessica Sciarone, De Roy Zuijdewijn has published a fourth report on Terrorism and Jihadism: ‘Terugkeerders uit Jihadistische strijdgebieden. Een vergelijking tussen Nederland, België, Denemarken, Duitsland, Frankrijk, het VK en de VS’ (Returners from Jihadist war zones. A comparison between the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, France, the UK, and the USA. This fourth report looks into the developments relating to the policies on people returning from Jihadist war zones, so-called ‘terugkeerders’ (returners) between January 2017 and mid-December 2018.
The Netherlands
Compared to other European countries, the Netherlands have undertaken relatively few attempts to bring back women and children from Iraq and Syria. De Roy van Zuijdewijn explains why on NPO 1. ‘Other countries in principal also have a policy of ‘not actively bringing them back’, but there the decisions are generally made a case-by-case basis and there have certainly been prevailing reasons to bring them back. When it comes to children, you really should be asking yourself if they can be held accountable for their parents actions? Last week Germany also decided to bring a small number of children back, so that doesn’t mean they are simply repatriating hundreds of children but the court decides per individual case if the government should be forced to make an attempt. In the Netherlands there have also been a few cases but this hasn’t resulted in the active repatriation of women and children. Mainly because the Dutch government believes that it is safer to leave them there, that is the current line of policy.’
You can listen to the entire (Dutch) segment on NPO 1.
You can read the full report here.