AMSTERDAM, 02/03/06 - Amsterdam city council is setting up a centre to which schools can report radicalising pupils. The measure stems from research last year into 'intercultural relations' at schools in the capital.

School boards, teachers and supporting staff from all schools in primary and further education in the capital will shortly be able to report to the Amsterdam Educational Reporting Centre for Radicalisation (AOR), the council announced yesterday. The AOR will give advice and also offer schools courses and training on how to deal with youngsters that glorify terrorism or deny the Holocaust.

Research by the council in 2005 showed that brutalisation at primary and secondary schools is increasing, both between pupils and between pupils and teachers. Another survey by teachers union AOB indicated that nearly half of all teachers in Amsterdam frequently or sometimes face radical behaviour, and that most teachers feel insufficiently supported by their school board when they want to do something about it, due to fear of damage to the school's reputation.

Home Affairs Minister Johan Remkes announced yesterday that internet is the main source of Islamic radicalisation. The web's influence on youths has become more important than mosques and associations. Foreign affairs like the Danish cartoon question thereby have a big impact, said Remkes at a symposium. He presented a manual, 'Combating terrorism at the local level' to the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG).

Mayor Opstelten of Rotterdam said at the symposium in The Hague that his city received 17 concrete reports in the past six months on people suspected of radicalisation. The reports come from an information centre to which all kinds of bodies including citizens can supply data. Remkes' manual envisages such a combining of data in all regions.