ASN Bank discriminated against a customer when booking back a payment he made to his sister in Gaza, the Dutch human rights council has said.

The council said in particular the bank was wrong for failing to inform Suhail Hamad why the money had been sent back, despite repeated requests. “This led the council in this case to suspect discrimination on the ground of race,” the ruling said.

Hamad told Nu.nl that he had sent the money to his sister to pay for medicine for her rheumatoid arthritis. In 2021, Hamad said, he had no problem sending payments to Gaza.

Like other immigrants, he said he had developed an “antenna” for discrimination. “And that is what I felt by ASN, he said. “The bank workers I spoke to were extremely arrogant. They would have treated me differently if I had been a white man.”

The bank, part of the Volksbank group, told Nu.nl earlier that it did not have an active policy of blocking transfers to Gaza, but that the war had caused problems with the infrastructure.

ASN declined to comment on Monday’s ruling until it had properly studied it.