Arnhem alderman Jan van Dellen has gone through the dust because a report on discrimination within the municipality has not been discussed by the city council. Officials who withheld the investigation were also beaten.
The councilor says he did not know the report was there. “But I should have known and informed you,” he told the council yesterday. According to him, “solid discussions” have already been held with the officials. He promises to come up with improvements before Christmas, to ensure that this cannot happen again.
The report withheld states, among other things, that there is “at the very least” an indirect form of unequal treatment in municipal applications for people with a non-Western background, writes Gelderland broadcaster.
Criticism
Officials would have criticized the design of the investigation. They found it incomplete and not yet finished and discussed it with the maker. The report was seen as unfinished and has therefore never been discussed further, says a spokesman for the councilor.
The researcher, associate professor Hans Siebers of Tilburg University, writes in a letter to the city council that he never heard anything about possible comments on the document. He thinks that the municipality was not waiting for the results of the report.
“The congregation was in denial and did not want to face things that are at odds with the equal treatment law. Then every conversation becomes meaningless. It seems that now the messenger is being criticized.”
The councilor denied this during the meeting. He repeated several times the importance of diversity in the municipality and a list of action points for this.
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