Today 13-03-13 there was a debate in the Dutch parliament about asylum policy.

Before the debate about 100 asylum seekers demonstrated outside the parliament, and around 150 attended the debate.

ChristenUnie MP Joël Voordewind, who stayed overnight in the Vluchtkerk last Saturday with colleagues from GroenLinks and SP, told parliament that the asylum seekers cannot be deported and will have to live on the streets when the Vluchtkerk closes at the end of March.

Fred Teeven, the Dutch Minister for Safety and Justice, argued that some of the asylum seekers can be deported. He said that they will only be given accommodation if they agree to co-operate with their own deportation.

After the debate, Teeven said it was ‘sad’ that the asylum seekers had demonstrated inside and outside the parliament.

Today in the Netherlands the Healthcare Inspectorate (de Inspectie voor de Gezondheidszorg, IGZ) announced that they have started an investigation into medical care in the country’s detention and deportation centres

The IGZ say that the investigation is to check whether conditions have improved since 2009 when several recommendations were made in a report. They have denied that a detainee’s suicide two weeks ago has had any bearing on their decision to start the investigation.

Today 22/01/13 Dutch migration activist Joke Kaviaar was handed a 4 month prison sentence by a court in Haarlem for ‘incitement’.

Joke says that she will appeal the decision at a higher court and that she will not silenced.

Joke’s support group 13 September, which was set up after Joke’s arrest have said that this sentence was expected given the current political climate in the Netherlands. Read their press release (in English) about the sentence here.

NU reports that Russian opposition party activist Alexander Dolmatiov has committed suicide in a migrant prison (‘detention centre’) in Rotterdam.

Dolmatov was a member of ‘Another Russia’ and was arrested last year after taking part in a large demonstration in Moscow against Vladimir Putin.

Dolmatov’s girlfriend has told Russia media that Dolmatov texted her earlier today so say his asylum application in the Netherlands had been rejected.

On Friday 30th November 2012 a certificate was signed by the Dutch government and the PPI-consortium Poort of Schiphol confirming the completion of a ‘justice’ complex in Schiphol Noord-West outside Amsterdam. Since then various parts of the ‘justice’ system have moved into the complex.

The new migrant prison (“detention centre’) there has around 450 places for new and ‘failed’ asylum seekers and people without papers. Zaandam and Oude Meer (Schiphol Oost) detention centres will be closed and dismantled.

The monument to the 2005 Schiphol Fire, currently outside the Oude Meer detention centre, will be moved to anothér location nearby.

Last Friday 30/11/12, the refugee tent camp at Osdorp, west Amsterdam, was evicted. Activists blocked the entrance to the camp from early morning but they were removed by police between 8am-9am. (Watch video here). After several hours all of the 95 refugees left on the camp were taken by bus to the ‘foreigners police’ station. Most of them were released later that evening, some dressed in just shorts and t-shorts in freezing temperatures.

The refugees were housed in a squat on Friday, a nearby social centre on Saturday and last night (Sunday 2nd November) they moved to a squatted church (‘de Vluchtkerk‘) in the Bos en Lommer region of the city. The owner of the church has said that they can stay there for the next 3 months.

Amsterdam Mayor Van de Laan has said that he wants to evict the Osdorp refugee tent camp in the west of the city on Friday 30/11/12 at 7am.

This afternoon there was a demo of the refugees and their supporters through the centre of Amsterdam to the offices of the IND (Immigration and Naturalisation Service). You can watch a short video of the demo here.

AT5 reports that the organisation ‘Vluchtelingen Op Straat’ (‘Refugees on the street’) are looking for a building to house the migrants currently camping at Osdorp in the west of Amsterdam.

The website states that Vluchtelingen Op Straat will present their plan to Amsterdam Mayor Eberhard van der Laan today in the hope that he will work with them to find a building. Van der Laan has previously gone on record to say that there are insufficient emergency winter shelter beds for the migrants.

The building, say Vluctelingen Op Straat, will be named ‘Hope House’.

You can watch some interviews with migrants from the tent camp here.

On Monday night two Dutch political parties, the VVD and PvdA, announced that they were forming a new coalition government. As part this announcement  they outlined their policies on asylum and immigration.

As expected, there will be a ‘kinderpardon’ (children’s pardon): unaccompanied minors and children of asylum seekers who have been in  the country for at least 5 years will receive a residency visa when they turn 18.

However, the government wants to criminalise anyone who is in the Netherlands ‘illegally’, such as those without papers. (Read more about this in Dutch here). Residency visas will not be given to those who were previously ‘illegal’ in the Netherlands or to those who have committed fraud.

Furthermore, foreigners who are convicted of a crime can now be deported up to five years after the crime has been committed.

On the night of 17th-18th October red paint was thrown onto the back wall of Dutch Immigration Minister Gerd Leers’ house. The action was carried out by a group called ‘No Blood On My Hands’ who said in a press release that they were protesting aganst Dutch immigration policy. See photos and the press release (in Dutch) here.