Amsterdam authorities ignore terror problem, Qatar funds MB in Netherlands

The Netherlands has witnessed a major infiltration by the Muslim Brotherhood, aided by Qatari funds, a recent report revealed, pointing to the failure of the authorities in Amsterdam to respond to the country’s intelligence warnings of what it considered a threat to democracy.

A report by Investigative Journal said after funds from the Qatar came in, the Muslim Brotherhood was able to acquire four known properties in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague, worth at least 5 million euros.

The Dutch government and bureaucracy had no response to the entrance of the well-funded and anti-integrative Salafists and Muslim Brotherhood in the Netherlands.

A 2010 investigation into the MB in the Netherlands by the Dutch intelligence service AIVD at the request of parliament, concluded that the group is secretive and anti-integrative and the activities of the movement could, in the long term, pose a risk to the democratic legal order in the Netherlands.

Qatar is suspected of funding the group’s acquisition of four known properties in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and The Hague.

In the years following 2008 the strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Netherlands was clearly focused on the largest cities in the country especially Amsterdam and Rotterdam. The MB also focused on Dutch converts and third generation Muslims who barely speak Arabic.

Thus most of the lectures and preaching in the MB mosques are done in Dutch and well-known international speakers within the Muslim Brotherhood current like Jamal al-Badawi and Hussein Halawa often lecture in English.

While the Dutch government and intelligence services clearly state in a report released to Parliament that the Muslim Brotherhood members in the Netherlands are secretive and anti-integrative, they empower them by allowing them to take key position within Contact Body Muslims Government.

Second-generation Muslim youth are being radicalized, but even when family members report them to the police nothing is done. Many have ended up in Syria fighting for Daesh.

Meanwhile, one of the de-radicalization coaches hired by the city, an ex-convict, Bilal Lamrani, turns out to be a radical himself and has been on the city payroll for almost two years. Even now, he is still occasionally being hired. The Dutch intelligence services still see Bilal as a potential threat. Their assessment about him is that he is unpredictable and dangerous.

According to a 2017 PEW Research Center report, the Muslim population of the Netherlands is about 1.2 million or 7.1% of the total of roughly 17 million.

Integration issues are difficult in the Netherlands; there still is a language barrier for many of the older immigrants and there is often a disconnect between parents and their children who were born in the Netherlands. But Dutch bureaucrats and politicians have been living in a bubble, believing that integration was going well.

The controversy led to the creation of the contact body for Muslims and the government (Contactorgaan Moslims Overheid – CMO). This did not turn out be a great success as it only represented Sunni Muslims. The Sunni organisation did not allow Shiites and Ahmadiyya Muslims in their organisation, and soon the CMO became, and still is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood current.