Dutch church prays 24/7 to shield Armenian family from deportation

November 30, 2018 By administrator

The Hague (AFP) – A Dutch church has resorted to the power of prayer to stop the deportation of an Armenian family sheltering there, holding round-the-clock religious services for more than a month to keep police at bay, officials said Friday.

The Bethel Church in The Hague has taken advantage of a loophole in Dutch law which says that police cannot enter the premises while a religious service is underway.

The five members of the Tamrazyan family, who have been living in the Netherlands for nine years, took refuge in the church on October 25 after Dutch authorities turned down their request for asylum.

“The Tamrazyans knocked on our door one night in a panic and asked us to shelter them and protect them from the police. It was urgent,” church pastor Derk Stegeman told AFP.

Ever since then, parishioners have held a continuous service 24 hours a day to make sure that it is illegal for police officers to go inside the protestant church.

“We have 500 pastors signed up to lead the services”, with some coming from other parts of the Netherlands, said Stegeman, who had recently completed a gruelling six-hour non-stop service.

“It’s incredible what people’s solidarity can achieve.”

– ‘Confronted with a dilemma’ –

The church has since attracted a blaze of media attention and messages of support on social media, while using its website to appeal for volunteers donations and food.

The Tamrazyans — two adults, two daughters aged 21 and 19 and a son aged 14 — left their home in The Hague after learning of the shock decision to reject their asylum claim.

The family reportedly fled Armenia after the father received death threats for his political activities.

In a statement on its website, the church said that it “respects court orders, but finds itself confronted with a dilemma: the choice between respecting the government and protecting the rights of a child”.

“The purpose of the Church Asylum is to create rest and safety for the family and to offer some respite to the family during which we invite politicians to discuss with us the family’s fate.”

The Dutch immigration service said it did not comment on current cases.

The country’s justice ministry has the power to exceptionally grant asylum to minors who are subject to expulsion orders.

The church saga echoes the case which gripped the Netherlands in September in which two Armenian children disappeared to avoid deportation.

Howick, 13 and his sister Lili, 12, were due to be deported to join their mother in Armenia, after a last-ditch legal bid failed to stop their expulsion.

But they were found shortly after the justice ministry said they would be allowed to stay.

Dutch election

March 15, 2017 By administrator

Dutch voters are casting their ballots today in an election that has been billed as a barometer of populism in Europe. DW will keep you informed of events as they happen throughout the day.

Welcome to our rolling coverage of the Dutch election, with the latest news, views and reactions to the divisive race.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s center-right VVD party is attempting to fend off populist leader Geert Wilders in parliamentary elections that have garnered international attention.
In a diplomatic spat Turkey has accused Netherlands of Nazi practices and of being responsible for the 1995 Srebrenica genocide, reportedly playing into the popularity of VVD.
Six main parties are predicted to enter parliament: the ruling VVD, Wilder’s Party for Freedom, the centrist D66, Green-Left, the Socialist Party and the social democrat Labor Party (PvdA).

All updates in Central European Time (CET)

14.07 Voter turnout is expected to be far higher than the last election. Pollsters Ipsos put voter turnout at 15 percent at 10:30 am (0930 GMT), up from 13 percent five years ago, with mild weather playing a part.

In The Hague, the seat of government, the figure was above 23 percent at noon, up from 19 percent in 2012. High figures were recorded in Rotterdam and Utrecht as well.

12.52 National daily “Der Volksrant” is reporting high voter turnouts at several municipalities. In Enschede at 11:00 20 percent of eligible voters had already cast their vote, compared to 16 percent five years ago. In Rotterdam at 10:00 13 percent had voted compared to 10 percent last time.

12.35 Send more boats! Voters (and boaters) have descended en masse to a polling booth on the newly built island of Marker Wadden for their first chance at visiting the man-made island. Access to the ecological project is normally restricted.

Turkey: Erdogan refuse to see himself in mirror, he says Dutch are “Nazi remnants and fascists”

March 11, 2017 By administrator

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described the Dutch as “Nazi remnants and fascists”, as a row grows over a cancelled Rotterdam rally, BBC News reports.
Earlier, the Dutch government withdrew landing permission for a plane carrying Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu.
He was originally scheduled to speak at Saturday’s rally in support of a Yes vote in a referendum which would give Mr Erdogan greatly increased powers.
The rally was banned for security reasons, Rotterdam’s mayor said.
Turkey has now summoned the Dutch charge d’affair
“Ban our foreign minister from flying however much you like, but from now on, let’s see how your flights will land in Turkey,” President Erdogan said at a rally in Istanbul.
Mr Cavusoglu also warned Turkey would impose heavy sanctions if his visit were blocked.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said in a statement (in Dutch) that the Turkish threat of sanctions made “the search for a reasonable solution impossible”.
Therefore the Netherlands was withdrawing landing rights, he said.
The diplomatic row comes just days before Dutch voters go to the polls.

Dutch anti-Islamist politician Geert Wilders calls for ban on Turkish cabinet visits

March 5, 2017 By administrator

Populist leader Geert Wilders has slammed a planned event in The Netherlands in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Wilders is hoping to come out on top in the country’s next general election.

With just 10 days until the Netherlands elects its next government, Wilders delivered a statement to reporters in which he slammed plans by Turkish officials to campaign in the European country.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte and other Dutch officials have already criticized plans to hold the rally in support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.

“They should not come here and interfere with our domestic problems,” Wilders told reporters, referring to the Turkish officials planning to attend the rally.

He went on to call for a ban on the politicians from entering the country, saying in English, “If I would be prime minister today I would declare – until at least the half of April when they have the referendum – I would call the whole cabinet of Turkey persona non-grata for a month or two, not allowing them to come here.”

Wilders, who officially launched his campaign in February, also said the Dutch government was weak for not banning the rally and referred to Erdogan as an “Islamo-fascist leader.”

Vying for votes

Wilders’ far-right Party for Freedom (PVV) led opinion polls for several months, with around 20 percent support, which was seen as enough to lead a multi-party coalition, if only the other parties hadn’t ruled out a deal with Wilder’s party. But the PVV has lost ground in recent weeks.

In the most recent poll released on Wednesday, it now trails Rutte’s conservative liberal VVD by 16.3 percent to 15.7 percent.

Wilder’s who last month launched his campaign denouncing what he called “Moroccan scum who make the streets unsafe,” has previously being fined for inciting racial hatred.

The controversial MP suspended campaigning for a few days last week after one his security officials was arrested on suspicion of passing classified information about Wilders to a Dutch-Moroccan crime gang.

The firebrand lawmaker, who has courted controversy with his hardline anti-Islam, anti-immigrant stance and incendiary insults against Moroccans and Turks, has long been under 24-hour police protection.

He promised to return to campaining this weekend on an anti-immigration and anti-EU platform.

The 53-year-old has vowed that if elected he will pull the Netherlands out of the EU, ban the sale of Korans, close mosques and Islamic schools, shut Dutch borders and ban Muslim migrants.

Dutch TV airs travel documentaries about Armenia

November 29, 2016 By administrator

After a one-week visit, the “3 op Reis” travel program on BNN Dutch public broadcasting association, which is supported by the Netherlands Public Broadcasting, has aired two travel documentaries on Armenia.

In their first documentary, the Dutch travel journalists presented several most renowned places in capital city Yerevan.

And in the second documentary, the Dutch TV journalists traveled outside Yerevan, and presented the tourist attractions and natural world of the rest of Armenia.

These travel documentaries about Armenia a can be viewed by following these two links: http://3opreis.bnn.nl/afleveringen/366950 and http://3opreis.bnn.nl/afleveringen/366789.

Video Geert Wilders: We Must Preserve Western Identity and Civilisation By Ending Muslim Mass Migration

June 30, 2016 By administrator

By OLIVER JJ LANE,

Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) leader Geert Wilders has made an impassioned plea for Western patriots to stand up and reject hatred and terrorism in the wake of several Islamist terror attacks.

Mr. Wilders has accused Western governments of being “dangerously blind” to the dangers of Islamisation, reeling off a list of recent terror attacks and calling for an end to Muslim migration. He said: “Western governments remain dangerously blind to the danger of Islamization. Islam is a religion of peace, they say but that is a lie. Look at what happened at Istanbul.

“Look at what happened in Orlando a few weeks ago. Look at what happened last March at Brussels airport and metro station, look at what happened at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris last November. Look at what happened in San Bernardino last December.

“The list is endless. And everything this list has in common is Islam”.

Mr. Wilders moved to clarify his point, remarking that while he believed that Islam was a significant problem for the West, individual Muslims could be good people. Regardless, he said: “no honest individual can say with a straight face that Islam is a doctrine of peace of freedom”.

Outlining how he proposed to defend Europe from radical Islamism, Mr. Wilders said that a “patriotic spring” was on its way, and remarked: “People often ask me ‘what can be done?’ and the answer is actually quite simple.

“Reject the fatalism. Islamisation is not inevitable. The first thing we need to do is recognize that Islam, and nothing but Islam, is the cause of our problems, and the next thing is to close our doors to Islamic intolerance… all immigration from Islamic countries.”

Stressing the importance of integration of Muslims into Western society, Mr. Wilders said those who were willing to work to fit in could fit in could stay, but those who wanted to create parallel Islamic societies within the West would be better off going to nations which already catered to their needs.

He said: “Those who are already here are welcome to stay if they live according to our laws and constitution. But if they want to live according to Sharia law they should go to places like Saudi Arabia where there are no elections and no freedom of speech.

“Where women and non-Muslims are inferior beings and where dissidents are jailed, lashed are executed. We are the opposite of that and we want to keep it that way. More and more Patriots all over the West are beginning to realize that it is the time to draw the line.”

Issuing a call to arms, Mr. Wilders concluded: “The Patriot spring is on its way. People want their country back, they and want to preserve their freedom and security. They don’t want Sharia law here. They want to de-Islamize their societies.

“My friends, Islam and freedom are incompatible so join us stand for freedom, your own freedom, the freedom of your children and grandchildren, and defend the identity and civilization of the West.”

Geert Wilders is a veteran campaigner for Freedom in Europe and is one of the best-known counter-Islamification activists. Speaking to Breitbart London earlier this month in the wake of a brutal Islamist killing in Paris, he said: “Ramadan is the deadliest time of the year. We should acknowledge that Islam is the problem. Islam and freedom are incompatible. We must de-Islamize our Western societies”.

Source: http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/06/30/geert-wilders-istanbul-orlando-brussels-paris-time-end-mass-muslim-migration/

Turkey: A Dutch journalist arrested for insulting Erdogan

April 25, 2016 By administrator

Ankara, April 24, 2016 (AFP) – A Dutch journalist of Turkish origin, Ebru Umar, was detained for several hours by police after being arrested in the night from Saturday to Sunday at his home in Kusadasi (western Turkey) for insulting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, ‘she said on its Twitter account.

The journalist said she was “free but forbidden to leave the country” Turkish.

Ebru Umar, known feminist and atheist, said she had been taken from the bed Saturday night at her home in Kusadasi, a small resort in western Turkey.

“Two men knocked on my door and told me that I should go with them, because of two tweets,” she told Dutch broadcaster NOS. She spent the night at the police station “to discuss politics and the situation in Turkey,” she added.

Umar, aged 45, was then released, but she confirmed that she could leave the country, and should represent the police in a few days.

She said she should have left for the Netherlands on Sunday, but she could therefore leave the country immediately. Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders said Sunday be “relieved” by his release.

He added that he had contacted his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu, to express his “regret” about the case.

“A country that is a candidate for accession to the European Union should continue to promote freedom of the press and freedom of expression,” he insisted.

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte also telephoned his counterpart Ahmet Davuoglu to express concern.

The Turkish authorities interviewed by AFP did not wish to comment.

Ebru Umar had recently written a very critical review of Turkey’s strong man in the Dutch newspaper Metro.

In this article, it cited in particular in support of its accusations against Erdogan, an email sent by the Turkish Consulate General in Rotterdam to Turks living in this region asking them to report any insult expressed on social networks to against the head of the Turkish state. This email was generated controversy. The consulate had subsequently spoken of a “misunderstanding”.

Rutte said he was “surprised” by this approach “strange”, demanding explanations from Ankara.

The trial for insult to Erdogan have multiplied since his election to the State of the head in August 2014, a sign, according to critics, an authoritarian drift.

Nearly 2,000 legal proceedings have been launched in Turkey for both artists and journalists as individuals.

Sanctions imposed for this offense is limited in most cases to prison sentences, but a woman was sentenced Jan. 20 to eleven months in prison for an obscene gesture against Erdogan during a demonstration on March 2014.

DUTCH ANTI-ISLAM POLITICIAN GEERT WILDERS SURGES IN POLLS

January 26, 2016 By administrator

Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders in Vienna, Austria, March 27, 2015. Wilders’ party is surging in the polls.
HEINZ-PETER BADER/REUTERS

BY JOSH LOWE,

A controversial anti-Islam party is surging in the polls in Holland, registering its highest score ever in survey data released Sunday.

The Freedom Party (PVV), led by right-winger Geert Wilders, who has denounced Islam as a “fascist” ideology, took 42 seats in a poll of voting intention conducted by Peil.nl. This represents a week-on-week increase of one seat and is 27 seats more than the party won in the country’s 2012 general election.

Holland’s governing People’s Party-Labour Party (VVD-PvdA) coalition scored 27 seats in the poll, compared to the 79 they took in the last election. The next election will be held in spring 2017, at the latest.

While the research cautions that this success will not necessarily be replicated in an actual election, the PVV has enjoyed consistently strong leads in a range of recent polls.

Wilders has capitalized on a rise in anti-immigrant feeling across Europe stoked by sex attacks allegedly committed in part by migrants and refugees on New Year’s Eve in Cologne, Germany. In January, Wilders held a rally in the Dutch town of Spijkenisse where he handed out fake pepper spray to women while warning of an influx of what he called “Islamic testosterone bombs.”

The far-right populist has been a household name in the Netherlands since 2004, when he split from VVD to carve out his own anti-Islam platform. His book, Marked for Death, Islam’s War On The West And Me, was published in 2012.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the center-right VVD prime minister Mark Rutte said that Europe has just six-to- eight weeks to find better ways of coping with the current influx of migrants if it is to avert serious political damage.

Source: http://europe.newsweek.com/geert-wilders-poll-anti-islam-419080

Dutch far-right leader Wilders tells Turks: You will never join EU

December 4, 2015 By administrator

n this April 24, 2012 file photo Freedom Party lawmaker Geert Wilders addresses parliament in The Hague, Netherlands. (Photo: AP)

Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders, the most popular politician in the Netherlands, has told Turks “you are not welcome here” in a video that takes aim at Turkey’s hopes of joining the European Union.

Wilders, who is fiercely anti-Islam, has surged in public opinion polls with his call for the closing of national borders in the face of a migrant crisis that has seen hundreds of thousands of people, mostly Muslims, fleeing to Europe this year to escape conflicts and poverty in the Middle East and beyond.

Turkey blackmail EU at summit in Brussels last Sunday to help stem the flow of migrants in return for cash, an easing of visa restrictions for Turks visiting Europe and renewed talks on admitting Turkey as a member of the bloc.

In his English-language video posted online on Friday with Turkish subtitles, however, Wilders told Turks in typically blunt fashion: “Your government is fooling you into believing that one day you will become a member of the European Union. Well, forget it.”

“You are no Europeans and you will never be. An Islamic state like Turkey does not belong to Europe,” he said. “We do not want more but less Islam. So Turkey, stay away from us. You are not welcome here.”

Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte swiftly condemned the video.

Recent opinion polls indicate Wilders would win the most seats in the Dutch parliament if there were an election today. His Party for Freedom would gain more seats than the two ruling coalition government parties combined, the polls show.

After decades of relatively liberal immigration policy that let in large numbers of migrants from Turkey and Morocco, the Netherlands, a founder member of the EU, has become much less accommodating.

The country of 17 million people, which is a member of the EU’s open-border Schengen area, now implements some of the toughest immigration policies in the 28-nation EU.

Turkey has been negotiating to join the EU for a decade but talks had largely stalled until Sunday’s deal due to disagreements over Cyprus and concerns over Ankara’s record on human rights and freedom of expression.

Dutch journalist detained in Turkey for the second time

September 6, 2015 By administrator

A Dutch journalist based in southeastern Diyarbakır province was detained Sept. 6 by the police for the second time, Netherland official news agency ANP has reported.

Frederike Geerdink was detained at around 2 a.m., as she was following the Democratic Peoples’ Party’s (HDP) program.

“I am in custody in Yüksekova,” Geerdink tweeted, adding she was with members of the human shield group who were also detained.

Thomas Bruning, the secretary general of Netherlands Journalists (NVJ), told ANP it was unacceptable the journalists had been arrested in Turkey.

The report also said the Dutch Embassy in Ankara was closely watching Geerdink’s detainment.

Geerdink was first detained in Diyarbakır in January at a time that coincided with the visit of Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders, who had harshly criticized the journalist’s detainment.

A lawsuit was opened against Geerdink on charges of producing “terrorist propaganda” on behalf of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) however she was acquitted of those charges in April.

Geerdink has been working in Turkey since 2006 and has been in Diyarbakır for three years.