At least thirteen people convicted of membership of a terrorist organization have received one or more declarations of conduct (vog) in the past four years. This is what outgoing minister Franc Weerwind (Legal Protection, D66) writes: Thursday in a letter to the House of Representatives. Some convicts received two or more declarations during that period: a total of twenty-two certificates of arrest were granted to people with a criminal record containing a terrorist offense. Thirty such declarations have been denied in the past four years due to a terrorism conviction.
Weerwind looked up these figures following the news that a 39-year-old woman who was convicted in 2019 for membership of the terrorist organization IS, worked as a volunteer at the aid organization Vluchtelingenwerk for a year after that conviction. There she worked as a legal assistant. In that capacity, she had access to personal files of refugees who sought help from Vluchtelingenwerk. She needed a passport for that position – and she got one.
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Measures
A Certificate of Good Conduct is always granted, according to the responsible government institution Justis, when someone has not committed any criminal offences. If someone has a criminal record, Justis will look whether those criminal offenses are relevant for the work for which someone applies for the VOG. Different violations are relevant for a job as a teacher than when someone wants to become a banker. The twenty-two certificates of good conduct that were granted to those convicted of terrorist crimes over the past four years were issued for, among others, the commercial sector, ICT, the energy sector, education and healthcare.
The thirteen people in question who received a Certificate of Good Conduct in the past four years were all previously convicted in the Netherlands. “I share the surprise of your Chamber, the board of Refugee Council and the [demissionair] Minister of Justice and Security [Dilan Yesilgöz] that the person concerned has received a certificate for this position,” Weerwind writes about the case at Vluchtelingenwerk. The outgoing minister will investigate whether the other 21 certificates of good conduct have been issued “in accordance with the policy rules”.
To prevent such cases in the future, Weerwind wants to make it more difficult for those convicted of a terrorist crime to obtain a certificate of good conduct. He wants a “sharpened assessment framework”, which in concrete terms means that all applications for a Certificate of Good Conduct from people who have been convicted of terrorist offenses in the past twenty years will, in principle, be accepted for “roles or functions to be determined later.” [worden] refused”. Weerwind will later determine which specific jobs fall under this together with Justis, the Public Prosecution Service and the National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security.
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