Dutch MP With Moroccan Roots Turned Away

A Dutch member of parliament with Moroccan roots was barred from four nightclubs in Amsterdam.

A Dutch member of parliament with Moroccan roots was barred from four nightclubs in Amsterdam and said police did not take seriously his complaint over discrimination.

Tofik Dibi, a member of parliament for Green Left, invited television journalists to follow him and his brother with hidden cameras on a Saturday night as they tried to enter clubs in Amsterdam's Leidseplein area.

"We took two Dutch guys along, white guys. We went to four randomly chosen discos, and my brother and I were barred, but they were let inside in all four discos," 26-year-old Dibi told Reuters on Wednesday.

Footage of the incidents was shown on Dutch TV this week.

Immigration and the integration of Dutch-born people with foreign roots has been a hot topic in the Netherlands since anti-immigrant politician Pim Fortuyn rose to prominence in 2002.

Mainstream parties have adopted many of Fortuyn's ideas, such as demanding immigrants take language tests and citizenship tests. The Netherlands now has some of Europe's toughest integration and entry laws. "I know that Moroccans, foreigners, often mess it up themselves in discotheques ... they bother girls, start fights, act asocial. I see that," said Dibi, who was born in the town of Vlissingen on the southern Dutch coast.

"But discrimination contributes to that. If you exclude people and they have the feeling that they don't have the same rights as others, then it hinders integration."

Dibi said he had gone to an Amsterdam police station to file a complaint without identifying himself as a member of parliament, and was not taken seriously.

That changed after the story broke.

"They called me yesterday and today. They are very friendly, they want to start an investigation immediately, but when I went there on Monday to register a complaint, I wasn't really taken seriously."