A PARLIAMENTARY aide employed by Geert Wilders’s far-right Freedom Party (PVV) has been suspended for describing women dressed in burqas as “scum”.
The weekend comments by the up-and-coming aide, San van Rooy, have given new impetus to the debate over the boundaries of free speech in the Netherlands – and in particular the degree to which such comments can inflame anti-immigrant sentiment.
Mr van Rooy videotaped the group of women in a shopping centre in Scheveningen on the outskirts of The Hague, and his personal comments were included in a clip he posted on YouTube.
The footage was removed yesterday but, in an exchange later on Facebook, Mr van Rooy claimed he was at a loss to understand why his description had been unacceptable. “What nonsense that you can’t call people scum,” he replied when asked whether he had even spoken to the women. “People who reject western values for a racist, fascist and inhuman system like Sharia are simply scum – just like Nazis and other fascists.”
The PVV almost tripled its vote in the 2010 general election when it ran on a platform which included halving immigration from non-western countries, tougher powers for the police, and a ban on the burqa. The party supports a minority Liberal-Christian Democrat coalition government, and the burqa is expected to be outlawed later this year or in 2012.
Mr Wilders was acquitted on charges of inciting hatred of Muslims, claiming he differentiated between Islam as “a political religion” and individual Muslims. Up to now, Van Rooy had apparently subscribed to the same view.