The government should distance itself from a website set up by the anti-immigration PVV to record complaints about central and eastern Europeans in the Netherlands, employers’ chief Bernard Wientjes said on Thursday.
The website is ‘a form of demonisation’, Wientjes told a news conference. ‘This contributes to a fear of foreigners, which is not what we should have in this open country,’ Nos television quoted Wientjes as saying.
So far, only social affairs minister Henk Kamp has commented on the site. He said it is up to the PVV to decide for itself what action to take. The PVV has an alliance with the minority government, which it supports on economic policy in return for tougher immigration rules.
Problems
The website, launched on Wednesday, asks people to report complaints about central and eastern European immigrants in the Netherlands.
‘Do you have problems with people from central and eastern Europe? Have you lost your job to a Pole, Bulgarian, Romanian or other eastern European? We want to know,’ the website states.
The website is illustrated by newspaper headlines such as ‘Wouldn’t it be better if you went back?’ and ‘Eastern Europeans, increasingly criminal’.
Protests
The Romanian ministry of foreign affairs wants the Dutch authorities to take action against the site, saying it ‘violates European norms’, and is discriminatory. Poland has also called for the website to be taken off line.
PVV spokesman Ino van den Besselaar told the Telegraaf on Thursday the site had already received 14,000 complaints.
Earlier stories
Problems with Poles? Report them to us, says new PVV website
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