CAN A MINORITY RETAIN ITS IDENTITY IN LAW?The convention protects the rights of national minorities, namely, minority groups
that belong, literally, to a different nation, even though they have citizenship of the state
in which they live. The convention requires all member states to create laws that will
protect minorities in their countries. Under the convention the protection of minorities
implies that they may not be persecuted on account of their ethnic, linguistic, or religious
identity and that they may maintain their culture. The convention expressly imposes
obligations on the participating parties, namely, the European states. First, they are re-
quired to respect human rights, both generally and as regards members of national minor-
ities (although this, of course, was already regulated in the European Convention on
Human Rights). And, second, the Framework Convention introduces rights that may in
fact be regarded as collective rights. Member states are required, for example, to ‘‘take
measures in the fields of education and research to foster knowledge of the culture, his-
tory, language, and religion of their national minorities’’ and ‘‘in areas inhabited by per-
sons belonging to national minorities traditionally or in substantial numbers, if there is
sufficient demand, the Parties shall endeavor to ensure, as far as possible and within the
framework of their education systems, that persons belonging to those minorities have
adequate opportunities to be taught the minority language or to receive instruction in
this language.’’ Furthermore, member states must ‘‘endeavor to ensure, as far as possible,
the conditions that would make it possible to use the minority language in relations
between those persons and the administrative authorities.’’
In the Netherlands, Frisians are the only national minority recognized by the Dutch
government within the meaning of the Framework Convention.^8 It follows that immi-
grants or Muslims in the Netherlands have no collective group rights, no rights to retain
their group identity, and no recognition as a national minority, except for the human
rights laid down in the Constitution and in various European and international conven-
tions on human rights. This is my provisional conclusion.
Individual Rights?
So if there are no group rights, are there individual rights? After all, the smallest minority
is always the individual. Almost everyone in the Netherlands spontaneously answers this
question with a ‘‘yes’’—and rightly so. Our entire legal system, including the Constitution,
is geared to this. The question that arises in particular is: Can an immigrant, particularly
a Muslim, remain a Muslimin lawin the Netherlands?—with the emphasis on ‘‘in law.’’
In the light of Article 1 of the Dutch Constitution, the answer to this can only be ‘‘yes.’’
The text of Article 1 of our Constitution reads: ‘‘All persons in the Netherlands shall be
treated equally in equal circumstances. Discrimination on the grounds of religion, belief,
political opinion, race, or gender or on any other grounds whatsoever shall not be permit-
ted.’’ It follows from this article that all individuals in the Netherlands, including immi-
grants and Muslims, are entitled to equal treatment in our constitutional democracy and
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