Asylum seekers must conform to Dutch values says PM Rutte

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte implored on asylum seekers to conform to the Dutch way of life if they want to make the Netherlands their home. On this their can be “no compromise,” he said at the press conference following his weekly cabinet meeting. “We will not adjust our norms and values. They have to make the adjustment. We are Western Europe. We are civilised,” he said. “The asylum seekers who come here, who are fleeing bombs and shelling, and who are willing to adapt, I will never hold you responsible for what has happened in Cologne,” Rutte continued. “We will not assume that everyone who comes [to the Netherlands] is a potential rapist.” The prime minister was effectively replying to a storm of comments from anti-Islam leader Geert Wilders, who tried to politically capitalise on the Cologne attacks by saying that allowing in asylum seekers opens the door to the likelihood of “sexual terrorism.” The comments largely echoed Justice Secretary Klaas Dijkhoff, who spoke on Friday. Dijkhoff said the people who perpetrated the mass sexual assaults in Cologne, Germany are “not real men,” and that asylum seekers in the Netherlands must accept that dissenters, homosexuals and women all have equal rights. Rutte also spoke out against Cologne’s mayor, Henriette Reker, who suggested the assaulted women could have done more to prevent the New Year’s Eve crimes at the Dom. “The women have had no part in this. The blame lies 100 percent with those creeps. It’s villainous behaviour.” So far, over 120 reports of sex crimes were filed with police.