22 September 2008

AMSTERDAM -- The mayors of the four main cities in the Netherlands plan to ask the government not to grant Dutch citizenship to foreign nationals who have more than one wife.

Dutch towns currently register such marriages even though polygamy is banned in the Netherlands.

Dutch law grants citizenship without asking whether an applicant is polygamous.

In Amsterdam over 100 immigrants have received citizenship because of this oversight, research from the mayor's office shows. The national statistics office estimates there are several hundred cases across the country.  

The mayors of Amsterdam, The Hague, Utrecht and Rotterdam are writing a letter to Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin asking him to change the law.

Amsterdam says it will continue to register polygamists until the law has been changed.

[Radio Netherlands / Expatica]