Dutch citizens with dual nationality must lose their voting rights and must not be eligible for political positions in the Netherlands, according to PVV leader Geert Wilders. This is in the interests of "the Netherlands' survival", he said in an interview with the Telegraaf.
"The Netherlands is our country. It must be run by Dutch, who are elected by Dutch. By Dutch wo do not even have the appearance of double loyalty", he said to the newspaper.
D66 leader Alexander Pechtold will not be prosecuted for a remark he made about Russians. His remark does not constitute group insult and is not punishable, the Public Prosecutor announced on Wednesday.
Geert Wilders and his lawyer Geert-Jan Knoops want the appeal in the hate speech trial against the PVV leader postponed until after the Public Prosecutor decided what to do with discrimination charges pressed against D66 leader Alexander Pechtold over a remark he made about Russians.
Wilders and Knoops sent the request for postponement to the Court of Appeal in The Hague on March 1st, the PVV confirmed to RTL Nieuws.
A nearly 1 thousand page long manual explaining in detail how pedophiles can lure, groom, and abuse children has been spread in the Netherlands for years. Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus of Justice and Security is looking into whether this book can be banned.
Research by RTL Nieuws revealed that this pedophile manual has been available on the dark web for over 10 years. The book is actively shared on forums for pedophiles and supplemented with new tips, experiences and advice. The police confirmed to the broadcaster that the book was used by various Dutch pedophiles.
The final municipal election results for Rotterdam are in, and they are mostly the same as the interim results. The only difference is that anti-Islam PVV lost one seat in the city council, and pro-diversity party DENK gained one. That shift is due to the distribution of residual seats, NOS reports.
GroenLinks won big in the municipal elections and is now the largest party in cities like Amsterdam and Utrecht. With all votes in 325 out of 335 municipalities counted, it seems almost certain that the CDA will remain the biggest party in the Netherlands, RTL Nieuws reports.
Geert Wilders and his PVV won city council seats seats in each one of the 30 municipalities the party participated in during the municipal elections on Wednesday. In total the PVV currently stands on 74 seats, the Volkskrant reports.
During the previous municipal elections four years ago, the PVV only participated in two municipalities - Almere and The Hague. The party got fewer seats in those two municipalities this time around. In Almere the party dropped from nine to seven seats, and in The Hague from seven to two seats.
PVV leader Geert Wilders decided to cancel a planned visit to an election event in the Terneuzen town hall on Wednesday after Terneuzen mayor Jan Lonink said that he was not pleased by the visit.
In the final debate before the municipal elections, the national party leaders of all parties represented in parliament had a final chance to convince voters to vote for their party on Wednesday. While the debate was for the municipal elections, the party leaders mainly focused on national issues on Tuesday evening, NU.nl reports.
Geert Wilders and the PVV sparked outrage and anger from politicians and various organizations with an anti-Islam campaign video broadcast on NPO on Thursday. A number of politicians and organizations announced that they will be pressing charges of incitement to hatred and violence against the PVV leader as well as the broadcaster.
The European Parliament launched a thorough investigation into the appointment of German lawyer Martin Selmayr as Secretary General of the European Commission, which basically puts him in charge of 33 thousand EU officials. This follows a debate on the matter insisted on by, among others, Dutch European Parliamentarians, AD reports.
The parliamentary inquiry comes on top of an ongoing investigation by the European Ombudsman. The European Parliament will make a statement on the appointment next month, and it may even lead to a vote of no confidence.
Chief Public Prosecutor Bart Nieuwenhuizen calls on politicians to stop pressing charges against one another in order to get attention. These "fake, tampering and show declarations" cost the judiciary a lot of time, he wrote in his column on Omroep West.
ING Bank raised the salary of CEO Ralph Hamers by more than half this year, to over 3 million euros, NOS reports. Parliamentarians are furious and demand an explanation. Minister Wopke Hoekstra of Finance is "not amused", according to newspaper AD.
The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, wants to get rid of the European Commission's task force against spreading fake news, the so-called EUvsDisinfo. This follows the task force naming a number of Dutch news services as spreaders of fake news, Het Parool reports.
The Dutch news services involved are NPO Radio 1, the Gelderlander, GeenStijl and The Post Online. According to the task force, pro-Russian propaganda gained the upper hand in a few reports from these organizations.
More voters plan to vote for a local party in the upcoming municipal elections than did in 2014, according to a poll by Maurice de Hond. In the previous municipal elections 27 percent of voters voted local, now 30 percent say they plan to vote for a local party on March 21st.
This is especially striking because more national parties are participating in more municipalities this year.
Vliegramp MH17, the foundation that represents the relatives of people who died in the MH17 disaster, is furious at PVV leader Geert Wilders for wearing a Russian-Dutch friendship pin on his suit during a visit to Duma in Russia on Tuesday. The next of kin want an apology from Wilders, the foundation said in a tweet.
Wilders tweeted a picture of the pin. "I proudly wear it here. A Russian-Dutch friendship pin", the PVV leader said.
Working with anti-Islam party PVV in his first cabinet was the biggest mistake Prime Minister Mark Rutte made in his career, Rutte said on television program WNL on Sunday.
Rutte added that he isn't saying he never should have done that "experiment", according to RTL Nieuws. "If the party is willing, with 24 seats, to become part of the power, then you have to try it", the Prime Minister said. According to him, things went well for 18 months "until it became stressful", and PVV leader Geert Wilders refused to take any responsibility.
The Public Prosecutor dropped the charges PVV leader Geert Wilders pressed against Prime Minister Mark Rutte, the Prosecutor announced on Thursday. Wilders accused Rutte of discriminating against the Dutch people by giving asylum seekers, among others, more benefits than the Dutch.
Jan Wekema, a candidate city councilor for anti-Islam party PVV in the Groningen municipality of Pekela, is also a 'prospect' or aspiring member of outlaw motorcycle gang Black Sheep MC, the Telegraaf reports based on information from three different sources.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte "underestimated" the impact Halbe Zijlstra's lie about being at a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin would have, he said in a parliamentary debate following the Foreign Affairs Minister's resignation on Tuesday. He understands Zijlstra's decision to step down, Rutte added, RTL Nieuws reports.
Minister Halbe Zijlstra of Foreign Affairs admitting that he lied about having a meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, was met by fierce criticism from opposition parties in the Tweede Kamer. The coalition parties call his actions mainly "unwise", NOS reports.
Minister Halbe Zijlstra of Foreign Affairs admitted that he lied about meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin in 2006. While speaking at a VVD conference in 2016, Zijlstra said that he heard Putin speaking about 'Great Russia' in 2006. Now he says that he wasn't there himself, but an anonymous source. He wanted to protect the identity of his source by saying he was there himself, he told the Volkskrant.
In order to prevent undesirable influence on Dutch democracy, the government wants to limit foreign donations to Dutch political parties, Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations wrote in a letter to the Tweede Kamer on Thursday.
Dutch broadcaster NOS recently decided to stop using the Dutch word "blank" to describe white or Caucasian people, instead opting to call them "wit" or white in English. This decision resulted in an uproar on social media, and even parliamentary questions posed by right-wing populist party PVV.
Colloquially, the word “blanke” is an adjective that goes beyond “white” to give a connotation of “purity” or “untainted”.
