On June 1, 2017, NGO Monitor sent an open letter to Mr. Bert Koenders, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Netherlands following revelations that the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC) inaugurated a youth center for girls in the town of Burqa, near Nablus. The center is named after Dalal Mughrabi, a terrorist who in 1978 murdered 37 civilians, including 12 children. WATC is a core-funding recipient of the Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law Secretariat, a joint funding mechanism of the Danish, Dutch, Swedish, and Swiss governments.

NGO Monitor sought clarification on future Dutch funding through the Secretariat to NGOs that incite to violence, justify terror and/or have alleged ties to terror organizations.

In its response to NGO Monitor (June 30), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the Netherlands clarified that, in cooperation with the other donor countries of the Secretariat, the Netherlands has decided to suspend cooperation with WATC until further notice.

NGO Monitor also sent letters to the Foreign Ministers of the remaining Secretariat donor countries – Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark. Following correspondence with NGO Monitor, the Danish Ministry for Foreign Affairs announced that it was freezing all funds to the Secretariat until it conducted a thorough review into grantees’ activities, and had already demanded a repay from one grantee, the Women’s Affairs Technical Committee (WATC).


NGO Monitor Open Letter to the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs, June 1, 2017

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Dutch Response, June 30, 2017

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NGO Monitor Response, July 24, 2017

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