Two centre-right parties agreed on Thursday to ban the burqa in the Netherlands as the price for parliamentary support from the anti-Islam Freedom party for their minority government, Reuters reported. The Netherlands would become the second European Union country to ban the burqa after France, in what many see as a shift to the right which has dented the bloc's reputation for tolerance and may increase security risks. The agreement tightens the rules on immigration and boosts the number of police officers in a sop to far-right Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders, who is on trial in the Netherlands for inciting hatred against Muslims. His party made gains in a June election despite being seen as racist by many Dutch people, forcing the Christian Democrat and Liberal parties to turn to him for parliamentary support. "We want to stop the Islamisation (of the Netherlands)," Wilders told a news conference, adding the measures would cut non-Western immigration by half. Christian Democrat political leader Maxime Verhagen defended the draft agreement, which has yet to be endorsed by his party. "This cabinet will assure our freedom, for everybody and everybody in the same way -- man, woman ... Christian or Muslim," he said. But Mustafa Ayrance, president of the Turkish Workers Union in the Netherlands, said minorities had suffered an enormous setback. Muslims make up about 6 percent, or 1 million of the 16 million population of the Netherlands. "I fear groups will turn against each other. The tensions in society will increase and we are not accustomed to that. Our country has room for everyone," he told news agency ANP. Under the proposals, the country would be able to bar entry to radical religious leaders, while convicted immigrants will be expelled sooner and more often and immigrants will lose their temporary residence permit if they fail an integration exam.
