The first nuisance family has been evicted and moved to a newly created, controversial "scum village" built from a disused shipping container on the outskirts of Amsterdam.
Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdam's mayor, admitted that the forcible removal
of the Roma family was a draconian measure but insisted that bullying and
violent behaviour had left him with no choice.
"The family has been causing problems for years and has a history of
vandalism, noise nuisance and threatening behaviour," he
told Amsterdam's Parool newspaper.
The eight members of the Gipsy family have compared their container homes,
numbers 48a and 48b, to a concentration camp and accused Amsterdam council
of "pure racism".
Francois Lonis, ex-partner of one of the Dimitrov daughters who still lives
with the family, criticised Mr van der Laan for commemorating the Holocaust
while "discriminating" against Roma.
"The mayor talks a lot about Auschwitz but sends us to this place. Where
is my mother-in-law supposed to do the shopping," Mr Lonis told Parool. "Our
television does not fit inside."
The
Dimitrovs family are the first nuisance neighbours to be forcibly moved to
police supervised accommodation housed on wasteland in the east of the
city as the crowded city of Amsterdam steps up measures against anti-social
behaviour.
"The container homes will be used more often, and in different parts of the city. This is how we want to deal with the most extreme cases of problem families," said Mr van der Laan.
The policy appears to jar with Amsterdam's international reputation for tolerance to prostitution and soft drug use but reflects hardening Dutch attitudes to routine anti-social behaviour that falls short of criminality.
The new punishment housing camps have been dubbed "scum villages" because their establishment follows a 2011 proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist Dutch Right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers.
"Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he argued at the time. "Put all the trash together."
The container homes for persistent offenders have minimal services and are under 24-hour supervision from social workers and police.
The policy is not a new one. In the 19th century, troublemakers were moved to special villages in Drenthe and Overijssel outside Amsterdam. The villages were rarely successful, becoming sink estates for the lawless.
Story source
"The container homes will be used more often, and in different parts of the city. This is how we want to deal with the most extreme cases of problem families," said Mr van der Laan.
The policy appears to jar with Amsterdam's international reputation for tolerance to prostitution and soft drug use but reflects hardening Dutch attitudes to routine anti-social behaviour that falls short of criminality.
The new punishment housing camps have been dubbed "scum villages" because their establishment follows a 2011 proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist Dutch Right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers.
"Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he argued at the time. "Put all the trash together."
The container homes for persistent offenders have minimal services and are under 24-hour supervision from social workers and police.
The policy is not a new one. In the 19th century, troublemakers were moved to special villages in Drenthe and Overijssel outside Amsterdam. The villages were rarely successful, becoming sink estates for the lawless.
Story source
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