The Amstelveen VVD faction leader Jet Smit is deeply concerned after she wrote in a message on X that ‘the Muslims’ want to take over power in Europe. She previously spoke about a typo, but after outrage in the council, Smit still apologized.
In an expression of regret on the website of VVD Amstelveen Smit writes that she ‘sent a worthless post into the world, fueled by emotion’. With the post she ‘unjustly framed a large group of people and therefore hurt them enormously’. “This is not me, this is not how I approach life,” her statement reads.
Smit previously spoke about one to Het Parool typo: she had written ‘the Muslims’ instead of ‘these Muslims’. She did delete the message from X. Her account can no longer be found.
Hate speech
Council members from D66 and PvdA did not think that was sufficient. They accused Smit op X of hate mongering and populism. The coalition wanted Smit to distance herself from her controversial tweet and felt that an apology to X was not insufficient.
Both Smit and the VVD have now distanced themselves from the message on