The recent Dutch elections of the second chamber have left many across Europe astounded. In an unexpected victory, a far-right party won the legislative elections of The Netherlands’ lower legislative house. Led by Geert Wilders, the Partij Voor Vrede (PVV), or Party for Freedom is the right-wing party that won the plurality of seats in the recent November election. Unfortunately, the results of this election reflect a growing rise in far-right sentiments winning in national elections across Europe. I went through the PVV’s election manifesto and picked out their most disturbing policy goals to spotlight the dangerous precedents that the PVV wants to set. Their most outlandish goals can be separated into two categories: those regarding immigration and those regarding climate change. First, the election manifesto expresses the party’s wish for a policy of administrative detention for so-called “jihad sympathizers.” Though the manifesto is vague on this point, this would, in theory, involve the arbitrary and indefinite detention of individuals outside of the traditional legal processes, such as the needs for reasonable suspicion, warrants, the right to a lawyer, and the right to a court case. This policy would open the door to essentially legal racial profiling, as government officials can detain anyone they purport to be “jihad sympathizers.” Additionally, the PVV wants to ban the Koran, mosques, and Islamic schools, and eliminate any government information, such as those on websites or in letters, from being translated into Arabic or Turkish. This overt discrimination against Middle Eastern people continues, as the PVV wants to ban the wearing of Muslim head-scarves in government buildings, but has no mention of Christian or Judaic head-scarves, for example. These policies indicate an underlying Islamophobic attitude, which the PVV also explicitly states in their manifesto, declaring that they want to allow less non-Western immigration and stop all asylum migration in order to lessen the presence of Islam in The Netherlands.
The PVV also supports a policy of possible denaturalisation for dual-citizens, where an immigrant’s citizenship can be taken away if they break the law. Such a policy would be very concerning, as it could be used to target immigrants from specific backgrounds and evict them from their homes for even the smallest legal infraction. The PVV’s other radical views relate to climate change. Though The Netherlands is known to be a country of windmills, the PVV wants to halt the addition of solar or windmill parks and stop the use of biomass energy. The party does not believe in climate change, and wants the government to stop considering climate change when deciding on laws. This of course involves pulling out of the Paris Climate agreement. In their election manifesto, the PVV states “the Climate Laws, Climate Agreement, and all other climate regulations will go directly through the shredder. No millions wasted on pointless climate-hobbies, but more money for our people” (translated from Dutch). From climate change denial to explicit Islamophobia and discrimination against non-Western cultures, I hope that the PVV’s need to form a governing coalition will moderate their extreme views, but only time will tell. a
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May 2024
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