Pubdate: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 Source: West Australian (Australia) Copyright: 2003 West Australian Newspapers Limited Contact: http://www.thewest.com.au Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/495 Author: Lucas Van Grinsven DUTCH TOLERANCE WEARING THIN THE Dutch, famous for their tolerant society, are starting to think it has all gone too far, with many complaining that they have ended up with an unacceptable free-for-all. And behind the increasing strident calls for more law and order is a growing tendency to blame crime on ethnic minorities. Just a few years ago, the police refused to register the ethnic origins of criminal suspects. But after a series of attacks in which black youths killed white people, the mayors of several Dutch cities have started to single out specific groups from North Africa and the Caribbean. This has fuelled tensions with immigrant groups. Moroccans rioted in Amsterdam last month when police shot dead a youth who had a knife. The Dutch have been noted for their tolerance in Europe for centuries. In recent decades they have added the sale of cannabis, drug usage and prositituion to a long list of misdemeanours to which they turned a blind eye. Some were even legalised. Now, the municipal authorities, many of which came to power in the 1960s and 70s when they replaced their older and stricter predecessors, realise they may have overdone it. The toughest stance has been taken by Rotterdam. City Mayour Ivo Opstelten has vowed to lock up or cure the city's 700 hard-core drug addicts. And the new city council has slashed the number of "coffee shops" which sell soft drugs from 300 to 60 and aims to reduce the number further. Amsterdam, one of the first European cities to adopt a relaxed attitude to homosexuals, is working to shut erotic bars and clubs. "This place is getting worse than Tehran," joked Siep de Haan who organises the annual Gay Pride parade. "City Hall is terrified about Amsterdam's image of sex and drugs and rock'n'roll." Begging, which ceased to be an offence many years ago, has been reinstated as a punishable felony by authorities in bigger cities. Urinating in the canals or against Amsterdam's elegent 17th-century facades, once ignored by passing policemen, will be punished by a hefty fine. Stricter law enforcement is welcomed by voters who have expressed their exasperation at what they see as a decline in Dutch society by electing new right-wing parties to run town halls. Having already restricted the sale of postcards showing explicit nudity, Amsterdam's mayor Job Cohen is aiming to limit all-night opening hours for brothels. In another sign of the turning tide, commercial television broadcaster SBS - which operates three Dutch channels - said in June that it would stop showing explicit sex, the feature which defined its launch a decade ago. "It was getting out of hand," said SBS manager Fons van Westerloo. "Erotic shows crept towards porn and overshadoweed our image. Viewer ratings were also going down. "Is the mood in the country shifting to become more puritanical? Yes, I think so. We've decided to take our responsibility." - --- MAP posted-by: Josh