Dutch anti-immigration MP won't be silenced
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http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jh ... rss/uk/wor
Dutch anti-immigration MP won't be silenced
Fri Mar 4, 2005 11:16 AM GMT
By Emma Thomasson
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - A Dutch anti-immigration politician, who is living in a maximum-security jail to protect him from attack due to his criticism of radical Islam, plans to get back to public campaigning despite death threats.
Geert Wilders went into hiding after the November 2 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and the subsequent arrest of a group of suspected radical Islamists who are accused of plotting to kill him and other prominent politicians.
Wilders was forced out of the liberal VVD party last year for opposing Turkey's bid to join the European Union. He recently revealed he had been housed in a prison cell, to pressure the government to find a more comfortable secure home.
"It feels like being trapped and the word freedom has become a totally different concept for me," Wilders told Reuters in an interview in the Dutch parliament, where he returned to work in December.
"I cannot go anywhere without six guards and three armoured cars and I have to tell them now what I am going to do the day after tomorrow," said Wilders, dark circles under his eyes.
"I haven't seen my family a lot. This is something you wouldn't wish for your worst enemy."
A tall man with a shock of bleached-blond hair, Wilders sleeps in the cell once used by one of two Libyans tried for the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing at a high-security complex within the Zeist prison in the central Netherlands.
He can receive no visitors there and initially had to put up with the lights going on and off automatically at the same time as the prisoners'. He paced the interview room in parliament to show the small space he is living in with barred windows.
Since Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in broad daylight as he cycled to work in Amsterdam, Wilders' office has been moved to a more remote part of parliament that is easier to guard and security has been tightened for the whole building.
Another threatened parliamentarian, Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who made a film with Van Gogh which accused Islam of condoning violence against women, has been housed on a naval base.
"INTOLERANT TO INTOLERANCE"
Wilders, who is seen as an heir to murdered Dutch populist Pim Fortuyn and who wants to launch a new right-wing party to contest elections due in 2007, refuses to be cowed and plans to launch a policy manifesto in the next few weeks.
"I have a lot of energy and I am very convinced I should continue what I am doing even though it's getting harder," he said, adding death threats were still coming thick and fast.
The 41-year-old said he has strong support from prominent people and is planning a 15-day bus tour of the country in May to campaign against the new European constitution.
But he admits his efforts to build a new party are hampered by security concerns.
His popularity soared after Van Gogh's murder as confidence slid in the centre-right government amid a wave of tit-for-tat attacks on mosques and churches. But his poll ratings have since fallen back to about 7 percent from a high of 19 percent.
Wilders wants a five-year halt to immigration, particularly of Muslims, and called for the arrest of what he called 150 followers of "fascistic Islam" under observation by the Dutch secret service and the closure of 25 mosques he described as "radical."
He cited experts who estimate that 5 to 15 percent of the one million Muslims living in the Netherlands are followers of radical Islam and demanded they respect Western values, the rule of law and freedom of religion, or leave the country.
"We have to be far more strict in order to keep our country together," he said. "If we don't learn to be more intolerant to the intolerant ... the majority of Muslims in Holland, who have nothing to do with terrorism or extremism, will pay the price."
He said the new European constitution, on which the Dutch will vote in a referendum on June 1, will mean a loss of national control over issues like immigration and a bigger say for larger countries, which could eventually include Turkey.
The Netherlands was a founder member of the European Union and support for the bloc is traditionally strong. But euroscepticism is rising and officials fear a low turnout might hand a victory to Wilders' "No" campaign.
"If we want to keep Holland a sovereign country, there is only one answer possible ... this is to say no," Wilders said. "I hope and I expect at the end of the day ... that the majority will vote against this stupid constitution."
Dutch anti-immigration MP won't be silenced
8O
http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsArticle.jh ... rss/uk/wor
Dutch anti-immigration MP won't be silenced
Fri Mar 4, 2005 11:16 AM GMT
By Emma Thomasson
THE HAGUE (Reuters) - A Dutch anti-immigration politician, who is living in a maximum-security jail to protect him from attack due to his criticism of radical Islam, plans to get back to public campaigning despite death threats.
Geert Wilders went into hiding after the November 2 murder of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh and the subsequent arrest of a group of suspected radical Islamists who are accused of plotting to kill him and other prominent politicians.
Wilders was forced out of the liberal VVD party last year for opposing Turkey's bid to join the European Union. He recently revealed he had been housed in a prison cell, to pressure the government to find a more comfortable secure home.
"It feels like being trapped and the word freedom has become a totally different concept for me," Wilders told Reuters in an interview in the Dutch parliament, where he returned to work in December.
"I cannot go anywhere without six guards and three armoured cars and I have to tell them now what I am going to do the day after tomorrow," said Wilders, dark circles under his eyes.
"I haven't seen my family a lot. This is something you wouldn't wish for your worst enemy."
A tall man with a shock of bleached-blond hair, Wilders sleeps in the cell once used by one of two Libyans tried for the 1988 Lockerbie plane bombing at a high-security complex within the Zeist prison in the central Netherlands.
He can receive no visitors there and initially had to put up with the lights going on and off automatically at the same time as the prisoners'. He paced the interview room in parliament to show the small space he is living in with barred windows.
Since Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death in broad daylight as he cycled to work in Amsterdam, Wilders' office has been moved to a more remote part of parliament that is easier to guard and security has been tightened for the whole building.
Another threatened parliamentarian, Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who made a film with Van Gogh which accused Islam of condoning violence against women, has been housed on a naval base.
"INTOLERANT TO INTOLERANCE"
Wilders, who is seen as an heir to murdered Dutch populist Pim Fortuyn and who wants to launch a new right-wing party to contest elections due in 2007, refuses to be cowed and plans to launch a policy manifesto in the next few weeks.
"I have a lot of energy and I am very convinced I should continue what I am doing even though it's getting harder," he said, adding death threats were still coming thick and fast.
The 41-year-old said he has strong support from prominent people and is planning a 15-day bus tour of the country in May to campaign against the new European constitution.
But he admits his efforts to build a new party are hampered by security concerns.
His popularity soared after Van Gogh's murder as confidence slid in the centre-right government amid a wave of tit-for-tat attacks on mosques and churches. But his poll ratings have since fallen back to about 7 percent from a high of 19 percent.
Wilders wants a five-year halt to immigration, particularly of Muslims, and called for the arrest of what he called 150 followers of "fascistic Islam" under observation by the Dutch secret service and the closure of 25 mosques he described as "radical."
He cited experts who estimate that 5 to 15 percent of the one million Muslims living in the Netherlands are followers of radical Islam and demanded they respect Western values, the rule of law and freedom of religion, or leave the country.
"We have to be far more strict in order to keep our country together," he said. "If we don't learn to be more intolerant to the intolerant ... the majority of Muslims in Holland, who have nothing to do with terrorism or extremism, will pay the price."
He said the new European constitution, on which the Dutch will vote in a referendum on June 1, will mean a loss of national control over issues like immigration and a bigger say for larger countries, which could eventually include Turkey.
The Netherlands was a founder member of the European Union and support for the bloc is traditionally strong. But euroscepticism is rising and officials fear a low turnout might hand a victory to Wilders' "No" campaign.
"If we want to keep Holland a sovereign country, there is only one answer possible ... this is to say no," Wilders said. "I hope and I expect at the end of the day ... that the majority will vote against this stupid constitution."
