MARK RUTTE'S FIRST 'BENEFITS SCANDAL' (IN 2003)
<img class="" src="https://cdn.oneworld.nl/app/uploads/2023/09/ANP-477525166-1600x1021.jpg" width="496" height="317" />
Mark Rutte during the public hearings of the parliamentary committee of inquiry that investigates the government's fraud policy (September 7, 2023). Image: ANP
HUMAN RIGHTS
MARK RUTTE'S FIRST 'BENEFITS SCANDAL' (IN 2003)
Long before the benefits scandal, there was already the “Somalia Project”. As Secretary of State for Social Affairs, Mark Rutte had Somali Dutch people extra checked for social assistance fraud. Racial discrimination, the court ruled, but there was no compensation and media fuss. A reconstruction.
By Roxane Soudagar December 14, 2023
Achmed Mahaamud Ismael (54) did not know why he was approached by two officials on October 26, 2004. He was quietly chatting with a friend in Schalkwijk in Haarlem, where many Somali Dutch people like him live. Suddenly, an unknown man and woman approached him: “Sir, can we see your ID?” “I was shocked and thought they were cops. They were from the municipality, they said. When I refused and ran away, they came after me. I gave my name and address anyway, and then they wanted to walk to my house. I said no. “Okay, then your benefit is over,” they said.”
This article previously appeared in OneWorld Magazine in the summer of 2021 and on OneWorld.nl on July 6, 2021.
There was no lie: a few weeks later, his benefits were stopped. He received it for about three months because he was unable to work due to heart problems. “It was a very stressful period. I had to pay my rent, my insurance, medication. I ran up thousands of euros in debt. They destroyed me.” He received a new benefit after six months, but continued to litigate: that first benefit should never have been withdrawn and he wanted compensation for the gap of six months.
HE WAS ADDRESSED BECAUSE HE WAS DARK-SKINNED AND SPOKE A 'FOREIGN LANGUAGE'
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In March 2007, he was proven right. The court found that he was a victim of racial discrimination by the municipality of Haarlem, which specifically controlled Somali Dutch people for social assistance fraud. The reason he was addressed that day? He was dark-skinned and spoke a “foreign language,” municipal employees confirmed at a hearing. They made home visits, but because not everyone was found at home, they spoke to people in the neighborhood who they thought might be Somali. “This was just racism,” says Mahaamud Ismael.
Somalia project
The “Somalia Project”, as this fraud hunt was unofficially called, affected many others in Schalkwijk. For example, Mahaamud Ismael talks about his half brother, who also had serious heart problems. He was the first victim to come to a law firm in Haarlem: Fischer Advocaten. This offers legal assistance to people who are dealing with poverty and exclusion. “This man didn't come up the stairs because he was so exhausted by his illness,” recalls lawyer Pim Fischer. “He couldn't buy food without benefits. While his medication had to be taken with food; he died that same year.”
There is anger in Mahaamud Ismael's voice. “My brother was seriously ill and his income was also taken away. We couldn't even afford a funeral, we had to borrow money.” At the time, Fischer Advocaten asked the municipality of Haarlem to investigate whether there was a causal link between the withdrawal of his benefit and his death. That investigation has not been carried out.
Picture: Joost Stokhof
Omar Ibrahim Hassan (56) was also approached by officials in 2005 and sat on a bench opposite the Vomar in Schalkwijk. “They asked all kinds of weird things. My ID and address, if they could walk along and see where I slept. I said, “Only the police can ask that. I'm not going to cooperate like that. '” A few days later, he received a message that his pending claim for benefits had been rejected because he had not cooperated. It was not the first time; his previous applications were also rejected. “They kept coming up with another reason, for example that I didn't have a valid address.” He did — he was enrolled in the Salvation Army, where he usually slept.
THEY WANTED TO SEE MY TOOTHBRUSH, MY SOCKS, WHAT WAS IN MY FRIDGE
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He tells this from the home of a close friend, Bashir Kadiye (58), also a victim of the Somalia project. Kadiye also refused to cooperate on the street; he woke up the next Sunday morning with those same employees in his doorway.
A roommate had let them in. “They wanted proof that I was living here. “Of course I live here, you can see that, right?” I said. But they wanted to see my toothbrush, my socks, what was in my fridge. I sent them away annoyed. Later, my pending claim for benefits was denied. I was no longer able to pay the rent and was evicted from my home.”
High debts
Hassan, Kadiye and Mahaamud Ismael have a lot in common. They fled the Somali civil war in the late 90s, were moved from azc to azc in the Netherlands for years, and all three divorced their wives. “Partly because of all the stress because we had little money,” says Hassan. All three have children who live with their mothers. Between 2004 and 2005, they came to Haarlem separately; due to lack of money, they rented rooms in shared homes.
Hassan and Kadiye look a little uncomfortable; they're not used to being in the limelight. “I was homeless for six months,” says Kadiye. “It still hurts when I think about it.” Only after eight months, he was able to convince the municipality that he was entitled to benefits; it took Hassan a year and a half. Both still have a debt of thousands of euros, mainly because they were unable to pay their health insurance during the period without benefits. Mahaamud Ismael has been back to work for twelve years and is now debt-free; that took almost four years.
'RUTTE INCITED RACIAL DISCRIMINATION', THE MEDIA HEADLINES
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The March 2007 ruling about the municipality of Haarlem reached many newspapers. Not so much because of a great interest in the victims, but because of a salient detail. The reason for the Somalia project was a letter from the Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, stating that this group needed additional control, signed by the then Secretary of State: Mark Rutte. “Judge: Rutte incited racial discrimination,” the media headlines.
“For the press, this case was about Rutte. I get it; Rutte has news value, but the victims apparently aren't,” says lawyer Fischer, noticeably frustrated. He assisted dozens of victims, but in the past sixteen years, no journalist has asked how his clients have fared. “Ultimately, the ruling had no consequences: not for the victims, not for the municipality and not for future victims, because no one has learned from this. Look at the benefits affair.”
How is that possible? That question was answered after Fischer Advocaten asked the Equal Treatment Commission (today's College of Human Rights) to investigate the Somalia project in 2005. Only then did Rutte's letter come out. At the end of 2006, the CGB ruled that the policy was discriminatory. Such a CGB ruling is not binding, but can be used in current cases, such as those of Mahaamud Ismael. When reading the CGB ruling, the 2007 court ruling and the media reports, all the pieces of the puzzle come together and it becomes clear what happened.
Picture: Joost Stokhof
On January 29, 2003, Rutte wrote in a letter to all municipalities that Somali Dutch people were moving to England en masse without unsubscribing from benefit agencies. Rutte wrote that these were “a few dozen” known cases, a small minority within the Somali community, but he still found it necessary and fair to further control this group. Because ethnic registration is prohibited in the Netherlands and municipalities were therefore unable to find out someone's origin in this way, he recommended tracing Somalis by searching the population register by place of birth.
The municipality of Haarlem then made a list of 84 names: all social assistance recipients of Somali origin. Detectives were given a simple assignment: make 84 home visits and make sure they really live there. If not, these people may well have been secretly living in London and the benefits were over.
THE HUNT FOR SOMALI WELFARE RECIPIENTS WAS A FORM OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION
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It is a fact that many Somalis migrated to England: between 2000 and 2006, around 17,000 people, more than half of all Somali Dutch people at the time. In England, there would be a closer Somali community, less bureaucracy and more opportunities to start a small business. But the ministry could not substantiate that dozens of these people retained the Dutch benefit, according to the Equal Treatment Committee.
Selecting by origin falls under 'race' within the law, the committee ruled. The Haarlem hunt for Somali social assistance recipients was unlawful and a form of racial discrimination. It is not clear how other municipalities responded to the letter: lawsuits were filed on behalf of victims only in Haarlem, so there was an investigation (see box).
Selected by origin
It was precisely in those years that a neoliberal wind picked up nationwide, says human rights lawyer Jelle Klaas, who worked at Fischer Advocaten at the time. In 2004, a new and stricter assistance law came into force. “Benefits were harder to get, easier to terminate, there were more demands.” Legally, a benefit could be withdrawn if it turned out that the residence address differed from the municipal administration. Indeed, during some Haarlem home visits, it turned out that something was wrong with the residents' data. And regularly, the municipality was simply not convinced that someone lived at the specified address. Then the benefit stopped.
The fact that people who refused to cooperate lost their benefits immediately is legally lawful provided there is a well-founded suspicion of fraud, says lawyer Fischer. Here, however, people were selected purely by origin and suspicions could not be substantiated either. When the court ruled that the investigation should never have taken place due to discrimination, some benefits were paid retroactively. In total, the municipality had withdrawn 32 benefits. Ten objections were filed, two of which were approved immediately and four after the 2007 ruling.
IN THE CORRIDORS, IT WAS CALLED THE “SOMALIA PROJECT”
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Fourteen years later, the municipality of Haarlem knows little more about the case. When asked for a response, a spokesperson says that the employees directly involved no longer work at the municipality. However, the spokesperson does remember that benefits recipients actually appeared to be living in London — the municipality can no longer find out the exact number. According to the spokesperson, the study was officially called “project roomhabitants”; it focused on people who were registered at one address with many others. “It's true that — because most signals came from people with a Somali background — it was called the 'Somalia Project' in the corridors.”
Rutte's critics know how to regularly stir up the 2007 newspaper reports. If you loosely summarize the ruling, you could say that Rutte has been convicted of racial discrimination. That is officially wrong: an administrative ruling is not a conviction, but an opinion on a specific government decision. Rutte acted as an administrator and not as an individual, so his name does not appear in the ruling. Moreover, his letter was not an order; the municipality could have ignored it. That should have even been the case, according to the Constitution.
No compensation
Haarlem also originated because of the administrative nature of the ruling. And a criminal trial would have done little because government agencies are immune from prosecution.
The verdict did not feel like a victory for those affected either. Mahaamud Ismael received the missed amount back, but his debts were not paid off: “All this time I couldn't pay my health insurance, and therefore not the dentist. The problems were piling up, I even needed a new tooth worth more than 3,000 euros. So I wanted compensation.” He filed a case but lost it on appeal in 2011. The reason: his victory in 2007 and its fame should provide “sufficient satisfaction”, according to the judge.
Kadiye and Hassan never saw the money they were missing out on. Despite the debts incurred, they did not start another lawsuit; they were afraid of getting into trouble again.
Picture: Joost Stokhof
The story of the Somalia project is not only about institutional racism, but also about the inaccessibility of the justice system. To do that, we have to go back to the years before Ismael's victory in 2007, and the fact that a business came and won in Haarlem in the first place should be called a small miracle. Social lawyers are scarce, and it was fortunate that the Somali community found Fischer's law firm, says Fischer.
Mahaamud Ismael already knew Fischer and came on his own initiative. Hassan and Kadiye did not speak the language properly and were unfamiliar with the legal system. Someone from the church — “Lenie, a very lovely woman,” says Hassan — referred them to Fischer. The lawyer suspects that there have also been “Somalia projects” in other cities, but that they remained secret because victims did not find legal assistance. A total of fourteen Somali welfare recipients came to the office in the period 2004-2006.
The lawyers filed emergency cases for ten clients to object and applied for new benefits at the same time. “That's not actually a law job, but they needed an income as soon as possible,” says lawyer Klaas. They lost the emergency cases piece by piece. They were not yet able to prove discrimination, and the immediate reason for ending the benefit was in many cases that the municipality was not convinced of someone's home address. Fischer: “For example, because during the home visit, only a mattress, an empty refrigerator and a tube of toothpaste were found. No one could live there, they thought. But that's how poor my clients were.”
Finally, proof
In 2005, Somalis had the lowest average income of all refugee groups; in 2017, two-thirds of them were living below the poverty line. But there is great solidarity between them, say Kadiye and Hassan. “If someone has no income or walks down the street, you help them. If necessary, you offer your home as a shelter, even if you are struggling yourself.”
The municipality did not want to know about that, says Klaas. “Instead of saying: “How annoying that you're sleeping on the floor in one house,” the benefit was first stopped and then talked. Obviously, these people were not fraudsters, but victims of harsh policies. The judges also addressed the new assistance law, interpreted it very strictly and saw that their living situation was indeed unclear, so a shame.”
Ultimately, it took an ill-considered formulation in a Haarlem enforcement report to get the case rolling. At the end of 2005, Klaas and Fischer caught sight of the term “Somalia Project”. Finally, they had concrete evidence of discrimination; they called in the Anti-Discrimination Office and then the Equal Treatment Commission. With the CGB ruling — this was racial discrimination — they won a few pending lawsuits. But most of the victims had already received a new benefit and had therefore dropped their cases.
The verdict would not have come without the insistence of Mahaamud Ismael. He is doing well now, he says. “I have a house in Haarlem, a job, my health is improving.” Kadiye is still living on benefits, and Hassan is still enrolled in the Salvation Army. Many other victims have now moved to England, they say. Kadiye and Hassan preferred to stay in Schalkwijk, because this is where they know their way around.
THE “SOMALIA PROJECT” DID NOT CAUSE A MEDIA STIR.
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A comparison with the benefits scandal is urgent. But although it does arrange for some form of compensation — even if it does not go without a fight — the Somalia project had hardly any consequences. How is that possible, in a case involving racism and violating Article 1 of the Constitution? “Administrative law offers few options in this area,” says Klaas. Repairing a benefit is one thing; proving the damage suffered and claiming it back is a huge job. Each victim should file an individual lawsuit. And if you do not receive assistance or receive assistance too late, a judge will only grant interest. “There must be a certain political will for compensation, as with the benefits affair.” Fischer agrees: “It is up to the media and politics to decide that there must be consequences.”
The Somalia project did not cause any form of media outrage. The scale of the benefits scandal is much larger, but Fischer especially wants to emphasize that this is a highly marginalized group. “A group that apparently has no news value, and also does not have the means to fight.”
Just as the benefits scandal does not promise compensation for immaterial damage (psychological distress), Mahaamud Ismael failed to convince the judge of this either. Fischer: “The impact on the community and on these people was simply not felt.”
In a brief response to the CGB ruling in 2007, the municipality of Haarlem said it “regrets” this method “afterwards” and would not use it again. In the future, target groups for fraud research would be selected on grounds other than origin. But in response to council questions in 2007, the Board of B&W said it saw “no reason” to talk to legal aid workers and victims so that what should not have happened could be repaired.
What has changed?
“People just don't seem to understand why we have human rights,” Fischer sighs. “Everyone, from the enforcement officers to the House of Representatives, thought it was quite normal what had happened here.” He points to Parliamentary documents in which the then Secretary of State for Social Affairs and Employment — current mayor of Rotterdam Ahmed Aboutaleb — actually applauds the use of “concrete fraud profiles”. This was his response to a motion by two MPs that, despite the March 2007 ruling on racial discrimination, ethnic factors should be able to play a role in fraud research. Aboutaleb found this motion “superfluous” because “there is little to question how municipalities work”.
According to a spokesperson, the Haarlem fraud policy has indeed changed, partly because of this case. “The human touch is back. We are extremely careful with risk profiles and do not select by population group.” The municipality emphasizes that laws and policies are influenced by what society asks for and is therefore pleased with the increasingly loud call for a less harsh fraud policy.
And Rutte? He said in a response in 2007 that his letter had nothing to do with discrimination; he would do it again in no time. “Apparently, this is not legally possible at the moment. Then it's time to change the law,” his spokesperson told the press. Although Rutte resigned after the benefits affair, he said something remarkable during the benefits debate in January. In his “private view”, he agreed with Geert Wilders, who proposed registering nationality to check specific population groups for fraud. “What is discriminatory about that?” says Wilders. “You have a point,” Rutte replied.
Responses from municipalities
For this article, the ten municipalities with the largest Somali communities were approached for a response: The Hague, Dordrecht, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Delft, Nijmegen, Tilburg, Arnhem, Utrecht, Rotterdam. Five municipalities responded.
The municipality of Nijmegen says that the letter was adopted “for notification” at the time, but that no investigation was launched. The Hague “does not investigate specific groups for fraudulent acts”. The municipalities of Utrecht and Delft no longer have the information at their disposal. However, the municipality of Utrecht says that “almost certainly no thematic research has been started in response to the letter”. The municipality of Tilburg says that there was a one-off exchange of data with the International Bureau of Fraud Information because many Somalis left for England, but no longer has the results available.
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