Dutch government will act on voting rights if Turkey holds death penalty vote

Netherlands and Turkey flag pins

The Dutch government will look into ways of stopping Dutch Turks voting in any referendum on reintroducing the death penalty, the foreign affairs ministry said on Friday.

Such a referendum would ‘not be compatible with our values,’ a spokesman for foreign affairs minister Bert Koenders said in the AD. ‘We first have to wait and see if it happens. There is nothing on the table in Turkey yet to make this referendum a reality.’

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has spoken about bringing back capital punishment since he narrowly won a referendum to give him greater powers last month.

The German government said earlier it wouldn’t allow voting in Germany if Turkey holds a referendum on whether to reintroduce the death penalty.

Some 240,000 people in the Netherlands are entitled to vote in Turkey. In last month’s referendum, some 80,000 did so, and 71% were in favour of giving greater powers to Erdogan.

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