Netherlands Home Affairs Minister Defends Halal Lunches for Muslim Police

Police in The Netherland's Gelderland region can continue to hand out halal lunches to workers who don't want to eat pork products, home affairs minister Piet Hein Donner said on Tuesday.

MPs from Geert Wilders' anti-Islam PVV had called for the special lunches to be scrapped because they represented 'unacceptable Islamisation', the Telegraaf reported.

An increase in demand for vegetarian lunches did not mean the Netherlands is being 'vegetarianised', the minister said in response to the absurd allegation.

The regional police force in Ijsseland has gone further. Since December, the force in that region has been supplying only pork free lunch boxes in consideration of Muslim employees. Previously, halal and regular lunch boxes were

both available, but the system created confusion.

"That didn.t work," said a spokesperson. There weren't enough, or they didn't get to the right people."We want to be a diverse force, therefore we take each other into consideration."

Now only pork free boxes are offered, but such boxes are usually only given out during large scale police operations.

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