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Old September 5th, 2013 #44
alex revision
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Roma family accuse Amsterdam of 'racism' after being sent to 'scum village'

The first nuisance family has been evicted and moved to a newly created, controversial "scum village" constructed out of disused shipping container on the outskirts of Amsterdam.



The eight members of the Gipsy family have compared their container homes, numbers 48a and 48b, to a concentration camp and accused Amsterdam council of "pure racism"


Eberhard van der Laan, Amsterdam's mayor, admitted that the forcible removal of the Roma family was a draconian measure but insisted that bullying and violent behaviour had left him with no choice.

"The family has been causing problems for years and has a history of vandalism, noise nuisance and threatening behaviour," he told Amsterdam's Parool newspaper.

The eight members of the Gipsy family have compared their container homes, numbers 48a and 48b, to a concentration camp and accused Amsterdam council of "pure racism".

Francois Lonis, ex-partner of one of the Dimitrov daughters who still lives with the family, criticised Mr van der Laan for commemorating the Holocaust while "discriminating" against Roma.

"The mayor talks a lot about Auschwitz but sends us to this place. Where is my mother-in-law supposed to do the shopping," Mr Lonis told Parool. "Our television does not fit inside."

The Dimitrovs family are the first nuisance neighbours to be forcibly moved to police supervised accommodation housed on wasteland in the east of the city as the crowded city of Amsterdam steps up measures against anti-social behaviour.

"The container homes will be used more often, and in different parts of the city. This is how we want to deal with the most extreme cases of problem families," said Mr van der Laan.

The policy appears to jar with Amsterdam's international reputation for tolerance to prostitution and soft drug use but reflects hardening Dutch attitudes to routine anti-social behaviour that falls short of criminality.

The new punishment housing camps have been dubbed "scum villages" because their establishment follows a 2011 proposal from Geert Wilders, the leader of a populist Dutch Right-wing party, for special units to deal with persistent troublemakers.

"Repeat offenders should be forcibly removed from their neighbourhood and sent to a village for scum," he argued at the time. "Put all the trash together."

The container homes for persistent offenders have minimal services and are under 24-hour supervision from social workers and police.

The policy is not a new one. In the 19th century, troublemakers were moved to special villages in Drenthe and Overijssel outside Amsterdam. The villages were rarely successful, becoming sink estates for the lawless.

Roma family accuse Amsterdam of 'racism' after being sent to 'scum village' - Telegraph