THE HAGUE, 12/03/10 - At least 10 highly-placed police officers have resigned from their corps in recent years because they were told that only women and immigrants could be promoted, one of them has said in Algemeen Dagblad newspaper yesterday.

The officer, Marc Jacobs, was a high-level officer in the Leeuwarden corps. He said in the newspaper yesterday that he was told by the corps leadership: "You can apply until you are blue in the face, but it will still be a woman or an immigrant." He resigned. "As a man, I do not have a ghost of a chance."

Jacobs says other white male officers are also unable to attain top jobs, despite their qualifications. High-level officers in Friesland, Zeeland, Noord-Holland, Gelderland, Utrecht and Amsterdam corps have already sought their path elsewhere, he says.

The Council of Corps Chiefs confirms that the 'diversity policy' of Labour's (PvdA) Home Affairs Minister Guusje ter Horst is leading to the departure of white officers, though the body is declining to give numbers.

The discrimination against white male officers has been the official line of police and government policy since 2005.