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."