Geert Wilders issues statement on PVV Norway shooting links

Geert Wilders on Tuesday issued a statement on the Norwegian shootings, in which he condemned the actions of Anders Breivik as those of a psychopath and a lunatic.


Breivik made at least 30 mentions of Wilders and his anti-Islam PVV party in the 1,500-page manifesto he circulated after Friday’s bloodbath and said Wilders was a person he really wanted to meet.
And according to Britain’s Telegraph newspaper, Breivik was in London to support Wilders when he gave a speech last March.
In the statement, Wilders says he is repulsed that the gunman ‘refers to me and the PVV in his manifesto’. Breivik is misusing the battle against Islam and his actions are ‘a slap in the face for the worldwide anti-Islam movement,’ Wilders said.
Ballot box
‘The Party for Freedom has never ever called for violence and will never do so,’ Wilders said. ‘We believe in the power of the ballot box and the wisdom of the voter.’
The manifesto shows Breivik is a lunatic, Wilders says. ‘He wants to work together with Al Qaida, he longs to blow up cities, dreams of knights who mutilate themselves and meeting his hero Karadzic.’
Since the bombing and the shooting, a number of Dutch commentators have said the PVV and Wilders have helped create an atmosphere which has demonised the multicultural society and the ‘left-wing elite’.
Labour
Breivik said in court on Monday his attack on the island youth camp was aimed at wiping out the next generation of Labour party leaders.
Political scientist Jean Tillie says in Tuesday’s Telegraaf that Wilders both limits and feeds extremism. Wilders’ ideas reduce the world to a simple place, Tillie says: ‘They are the good guys who have to combat the enemy, but the world is not that simple,’ he writes.
Related stories
What the papers say
Norway shooter made many references to the Netherlands

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