The 70-year-old Icke is programmed on November 6 as one of the speakers at a demonstration of Samen voor Nederland. This protest movement originated during the corona time and, according to its website, it fights ‘against the increasing meddling and regulatory pressure from the government’. About sixty organizations have joined, including the yellow vests, Virus Truth, the Nexit movement and Forum for Democracy.
The leader of that party, Thierry Baudet, was discredited on Monday after he announced in an American interview that the world is run by ‘evil reptiles’. That statement – which according to Baudet was ‘naturally’ meant metaphorically – is directly borrowed from the work of Icke, who, after a career as a BBC reporter and spokesman for the left-wing Green Party, turned towards conspiracy theories.
In his 1999 book The Biggest Secret he explains how powerful figures like Bill and Hillary Clinton, Tony Blair, Winston Churchill, the Pope and even Queen Beatrix are descended from the ‘Reptilians‘. This alien race would come together on the sly to plot against the world. At the center of this theory are the Rothschilds, a well-known Jewish banking family, who are said to be responsible for numerous wars and crises, including the corona pandemic, with the aim of becoming supreme.
Although Icke has always firmly denied that he has anything against Jews, according to Professor of Jewish Studies Bart Wallet (University of Amsterdam), his theory is unmistakably laced with anti-Semitism. “The iconography of reptiles as threatening creatures can already be seen in 19th- and 20th-century anti-Semitic prints, depicting Jews with lizard claws or snake heads,” he says.
Ban
It is not known exactly what Icke wants to announce when he comes to the Netherlands in November, but his ‘anti-Semitic statements’ are reason enough for the municipality of Amsterdam to oppose his participation in the demonstration. The Briton is causing social unrest, according to the Amsterdam triangle (police, justice and mayor) in a statement. Moreover, ‘the dignity of the monument on Dam Square’, in memory of the victims of the Second World War, is ‘at stake’.
The triangle makes an urgent appeal to the organization to withdraw the invitation to Icke or at least to move to another place in the city.
Banning the demonstration is not an option, because freedom of expression and the right to demonstrate are enshrined in the constitution. “We are not allowed to interfere with the content of a demonstration,” says a spokesperson for the municipality of Amsterdam. Banning a demonstration in advance almost never happens and, according to the spokesperson, is only possible if there are ‘concrete indications that public order, public health or road safety is at risk’.
That is why the municipality has now appealed to the IND, which is authorized to declare a person an undesirable alien. In 2019 Australia managed to keep Icke out of the door via this route. In the Netherlands, too, people have been banned several times in the past. For example, the Turkish Minister of Family Affairs Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya was expelled from the Netherlands in 2017 because the government feared that the speech she wanted to give in Rotterdam would lead to riots between supporters and opponents of President Erdogan.
Two years later, the American ‘hate minister’ Steven Anderson, who is in favor of the death penalty for gays and lesbians, was banned from entering the Netherlands. The then State Secretary Mark Harbers stated that in the Netherlands there is ‘no room for discrimination, incitement to hatred or intolerance and violence on any ground’.
Withdraw support
It remains to be seen whether the Dutch government can also block the arrival of David Icke, according to immigration lawyer Hans van Oort. ‘The IND must make clear why David Icke’s arrival in the Netherlands would pose a threat to internal security or public order,’ he says. ‘In Icke’s case, that is a lot more difficult than with hate preachers or if there are concrete terrorist threats.’
According to professor Bart Wallet, there is also another, simpler option to stop Icke. “Organisers of the manifestation in Amsterdam could withdraw their support for Icke’s speech,” he says. As far as is known, only the political party BVNL, van Wybren van Haga, has yet announced that it will not be present at the manifestation if Icke actually shows up.