The National Ombudsman investigates citizens who get into trouble because they are on a terrorism list. “Despite the major consequences of such a registration, it is unclear where citizens can go with questions,” writes ombudsman Reinier van Zutphen Monday.
This concerns the so-called CTER registration, short for Counterterrorism, Extremism and Radicalization. People can get on the police list without even knowing it, and then get into trouble because their data is shared with other authorities or countries. The ombudsman has received “a dozen” complaints about this.
Citizens do not know where to go and have difficulty obtaining information about their registration, according to the complaints. “We speak to citizens who feel like they are being sent from pillar to post,” Van Zutphen said in a statement. “That is unacceptable.” The research is expected to be completed before the end of the year.
Fixed
It is unclear to the people who submitted the complaints whether they are on the CTER list, why, and with whom their data has been shared, says a spokesperson for the National Ombudsman. “Particularly when they crossed the border, they noticed that other organizations had information about them. For example, visas were refused, they were extra checked at the border or stopped in another country.”
It is therefore not entirely certain whether the CTER registrations actually led to the problems that citizens encountered. Yet the ombudsman has “enough reason to think that CTER is the constant,” says the spokesperson.
‘Tens of thousands of people’
Follow the Money reported at the end of last year that tens of thousands of Dutch people have a CTER registration, while only “a few hundred” were seen as potentially dangerous. Reason for Member of Parliament Ismail el Abassi (Denk) to consolidate the cabinet motion to investigate who is wrongly on the list. A majority voted against.
Justice Minister Dilan Yesilgöz (VVD) called Follow the Money’s reporting “factually incorrect”. In a Parliamentary debate she said: “I really reject the image that tens of thousands of people are wrongly accused. Our services work hard day and night to keep us safe and protect us from terrorists. That is what is behind it, and not something else.”
Purpose unclear
The CTER organization to which the register belongs was established “with steam and boiling water” after the attacks in Paris and Brussels in 2015 and 2016, the Justice and Security Inspectorate wrote a few years ago. an investigation to the organization. Employees did not agree among themselves what exactly their task was, and that led to “tensions in cooperation and conflicts.”
According to the inspection, CTER falls under the national police unit, but the police have no information about it on its own website. The police could not immediately be reached for a response on Monday morning.