The Dutch government has to close the embassy of Eritrea in The Hague. This was stated by Lower House member Sjoerd Sjoerdsma, from the ruling D66, in a motion supported by member of parliament Malik Azmani of the VVD, the party of Prime Minister Mark Rutte.
21 December 2017
The reason is that the Eritrean authorities continue to force former compatriots in the Netherlands to pay tax. Sjoerdsma spoke on Wednesday during a debate on the Eritrean "diaspora tax". He recalled that the Eritrean authorities had already been asked several times about the undesirable practices. He was referring to reports by Argos, which devotes a broadcast to the practices on Saturday.
The research program quotes from a secretly recorded conversation with the head of the embassy. In it, an Eritrean asylum seeker is forced to pay the so-called 2-percent tax and to express his regret for having fled from the African country. Otherwise he will not get the necessary government document. From the transcripts of the conversation it appears that the asylum seeker has to sign a form about the repentance, with which he immediately shows his willingness to receive the "correct sentence". "Everyone who has gone out of the country must first sign this, there is no way around it, and then we can provide our service", he says.
VVD'er Azmani calls the practice "not acceptable". "Despite my previous request, the previous foreign minister has failed to put an end to this." The current Minister of Foreign Affairs Halbe Zijlstra speaks of an "unsettling image" that Argos outlines. He wants to wait for Saturday's broadcast before he speaks out, in order to get a complete picture.
*Software translation*
| | | | Kamerleden van VVD en D66 willen dat ambassade van Eritrea in Den Haag sluit By VRT NWS Reden is dat de Eritrese autoriteiten doorgaan met ex-Eritreeërs te dwingen tot het afdragen van belasting. | | | |
