THE HAGUE, January 22, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk's recent anti-immigrant measures, including a rule to speak Dutch in public, drew fire from Muslim minority leaders as well as from her own party.

"Linking integration to speaking Dutch in the street is nothing but an attempt to turn a blind eye to certain realities on the ground," Dris Boujoufi, the deputy chairman of the council of Muslim representatives in the Netherlands, told IslamOnline.net Sunday, January 22.

"Immigrants of the second and third generations who were born, raised and taught in the Netherlands are yet unable to integrate though they speak Dutch."

Verdonk told a meeting of her liberal VVD party on Saturday, January 21, that immigrants must comply with a national code of conduct by speaking Dutch in the street.

Her proposal drew immediate fire from some members of her own party.

"I can't see what would hurt the minister or others if I spoke Surinamese with a friend in the street?" asked Laetitia Griffith, a member of Amsterdam's College of Aldermen which creates and maintains the city's systems and policies jointly with the city council and mayor.

Born in Surinam in 1965, Griffith has lived in the Netherlands since 1987 and has worked for both the Ministry of Justice and the Public Prosecutor's Office.

From 2003 to 2005, she was a member of the Dutch House of Representatives.

"This law violates international law on rights of minorities and right to family reunion and marriage," Boujoufi said.

Boujoufi also criticized recently-approved rules obliging prospective immigrants to take tests, for which they will have to pay, to prove their knowledge of the Dutch culture and language.

From next March, foreigners seeking to immigrate to the Netherlands will have to sit, in their countries of origin, a test costing 350 euros ($425) before being granted a residence permit. This also applies to scholars and imams.

The law further obliges any immigrant who wants to bring a relative into the country to have a salary exceeding the lowest rate of wages in the Netherlands.

"This violates international law on rights of minorities and right to family reunion and marriage," Boujoufi said.

He asserted that the new rules would make it almost impossible for foreigners to marry except native Dutch.

The law exempts European Union nationals, Canadians, Japanese, New Zealanders and Americans from taking the test.

"This is a discrimination against certain minorities," Boujoufi charged.

He stressed that the law mainly targets Muslim immigrants, especially from Turkey and Morocco.

"This is because immigrants from these countries usually prefer to marry from their countries of origin."

Muslims make up one million of the Netherlands’s 16 million population. Turks represent 80 percent of the Muslim minority.

Europe’s main rights and democracy watchdog, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), expressed concern in May 2005 at the increasing Dutch intolerance towards Muslims and the "climate of fear" under which the minority was living.