. put. A colleague in Venlo, who is threatened and protected because the national PVV faction targeted him.
These are recent examples of local politicians who are unable or difficult to do their work, due to the increasingly fierce resistance to asylum reception. Threats in the private sphere, pelting with fireworks and violence are not avoided. In 2024, council members faced aggression, also around other themes, according to the most recent Monitor Integrity and Security.
Almost every council member in my research says they no longer put everything on social media or disable comments
Council members change their behavior, sees Marjolein Teunissen, who, in addition to her work as a council clerk, conducts PhD research into the effect of aggression on council work. “Stopping or changing voting behavior is often a bridge too far. But almost every councilor in my research, sixty in total, says they no longer put everything on social media or disable comments.”
Some municipalities are giving in to the asylum seekers’ center resistance, others are reconsidering decisions or carrying them over the March municipal elections. Certain council members also no longer ask all questions to the council, or avoid supermarkets where they may encounter people with strong opinions about their political choices. “Worrying,” says Teunissen.
Thinner
The Dutch Association for Councilors has not yet received any signals that electoral lists cannot be completed because candidates are dropping out for fear of aggression. “We do see that overall the pool of candidate council members is diluting,” a spokesperson said. “Across the entire political spectrum, from local to national.” According to the association, this will not yet lead to empty seats.
The Ministry of the Interior notes the details of council members who retire motivations. Number one is the time investment that the work requires, followed by ‘health’ and ‘no desire anymore’. The data does not say whether and how many councilors left due to aggression. Forty council members resigned in 2024 and 2025 due to ‘personal circumstances’, but this category is not specified.
According to Teunissen, it can be explained why aggression alone does not quickly lead to stopping. A councilor is generally more extrovert and emotionally stable than the average Dutch person, according to her preliminary conclusions. “They won’t give up easily,” she says.
That is not without risk: “Council members will be quicker to enter into a conversation with an aggressor than to draw a line. That rapprochement without immediately judging is nice, but because it means they are pushing their boundaries.”
Montferland
A bang so loud that it caused Jenneke Laurense and Boris to ring in their ears. On December 2, 2024, the council members of Lijst Groot Montferland were on their way to a meeting about the arrival of an asylum seekers’ center in the town of Didam, when fireworks were thrown at them from a group of about thirty demonstrators.
“I suffered from tinnitus and ringing for two to three months,” says Van. Partly because of the complaints, he considered quitting council work. Laurense’s dizziness and wheezing disappeared the next morning.
Before the end of 2024, the case surrounding the fireworks thrower was dismissed because the perpetrator could not be identified. Laurense “turned the switch” – but continued to suffer. When she saw two well-known asylum seekers’ center demonstrators standing behind the glass doors of the hall during a closed council meeting in March, it became too much for her. “Suddenly it struck me, also to complete it for myself.”
If you feel inhibited from speaking your mind, you should either stop or do something about it
Toon Schepers (Local Interest Montferland) lives in the countryside. “When someone was driving some stakes into the ground here to repair a fence, he was spoken to. ‘Why are you tidying up that pasture? There will definitely be an asylum seekers’ center here.’ And then I get messages: ‘If you allow that asylum centre, Toon, it won’t be there for long.’”
Only: the asylum center in Montferland does not yet have a proposed location. Last year a search was made in vain for a place in Didam. COA rejected two options due to safety and environmental aspects, among other things; a third was financially unfeasible. So now the search is underway in the entire municipality of Montferland.
Pluriformity
The new municipal council must decide on the asylum seekers’ center after the elections in March. While Lijst Groot Montferland already has a list of candidates ready, Schepers’ party is still working on it. “Last week a gentleman said: ‘I want to, but I have to tell it at home’. His wife finds it very threatening if he were to enter politics; he has asked for time to think about it. I understand the reluctance.”
The PvdA will finalize its list, says party leader Els Rutting-Baars. “But the intimidation of council members is intense.” She previously posted videos on social media in which she explains to her supporters at her kitchen table, sometimes in pajamas, how politics works and why she supports certain decisions. “At one point I also received reactions like ‘I know where you live, your windows are going to be taken out’. That doesn’t make me hot or cold, but my husband wanted me to stop making the videos.”
Laurense has also become more cautious online. “But I don’t feel inhibited in the council chamber.” And Schepers speaks to “everyone”, as a catering man he is used to a “plurality of people”. Yet he is also thoughtful: “I attend a protest meeting, but I don’t stand at the front. I first see how things are going on the sidelines.” At the same time, he says, the protest in Montferland has now “decreased in intensity.”
Van’s beep disappeared a year later. He will not stop consulting: “If you feel inhibited from saying what you think, you should either stop or do something about it. The event motivates me. I will not let myself be chased away.”
Tractors and horns
The discussion went off the rails in the Brabant village of Best in April.
While then minister Marjolein Faber (Asylum, PVV) had to explain in the House of Representatives why she refused to award ribbons to COA volunteers, an information evening was held in a sports hall in Best. In one of the gymnasiums, residents could discuss the proposed location for an asylum seekers’ center with the mayor, aldermen and councilors.
The group app of council members from Best had been talking about the information evening for days. They shared messages from the Facebook group ‘AZC Best NO’ and talked about safety measures, including councilor Marlie Bongaerts (D66). Her eleven-year-old son had football training that evening and would normally cycle back alone, past the sports hall. But they decided that this time her husband would pick up their son.
When her husband returned, he asked: would you go tonight? At the sports hall he had seen young people with tractors and horns. Friends and acquaintances asked Bongaerts the same question. “Then I decided based on a gut feeling: I’m not going to look this up,” she says.
I thought: should I voluntarily enter that danger zone?
Other council members were in the gym, such as Femke de Vries (CDA). She finds council work “generally very sweet and fun”. But when protesters broke open the entrance to the gym, set off fireworks and banged on the gym door, she thought: My god, this exists too – and I’m in the middle of it.
That evening “had quite an impact,” says De Vries. Two weeks later, riot vans, concrete blocks and fences were ready for a council meeting, in which asylum reception would not even be discussed. “I thought: should I voluntarily enter that danger zone?” De Vries canceled for that evening.
What was on the agenda at that council meeting was the ‘policy framework for newcomers’. Campaigners had interpreted this as a discussion about asylum reception. They made so much noise that at the suggestion of Bongaerts (D66), who was present at the time, the subject was discussed later. Afterwards, the council members were escorted to their car or bicycle by the police via another exit.
Also read
Meeting about the arrival of asylum seekers’ centers in North Brabant ended prematurely after violence and fireworks
Board up the mailbox
It is still unclear where and how many asylum seekers Best receives. The municipal council is investigating whether small-scale shelter, spread over various locations, is a possibility. “I am proud of that,” says Bongaerts. “It is not off the table, like in other municipalities.”
Party leader Steven van der Heijden (GroenLinks-PvdA) believes that the activists were rewarded for their threats. “If we start to have doubts as a matter of politics, you give them one finger… And who knows what they will do if another decision is made now. My fear is that we are legitimizing violence.”
At the hockey club, Van der Heijden no longer engages in discussion over a beer after the match. He has “thick skin,” he says, but remains alert. “Can I still walk around everywhere? Do I have to keep looking back?” He was “slightly joking” with his girlfriend about boarding up the mailbox against fireworks and removing the nameplate from the front door. “Stupid jokes, but real fears.”
Bongaerts no longer had a name tag before the asylum seekers’ center issue. “It’s sad, but we have always been alert. My husband and child have dark skin. With the national sentiment, the racism that also surfaces here in Best around the asylum seekers’ center… that does something to me.”
If you take this into account, I wonder who still wants to be a representative of a political party
This month it will become clear whether small-scale asylum reception is possible in Best. “It keeps bubbling – and when a decision is made, it flares up again,” says Van der Heijden. “We have to wait and see until it starts again,” says Best Open faction chairman Leon Kennis. In the campaign for the municipal elections, parties may profile themselves on the asylum seekers’ center dossier, fears party leader Wouter Bondt of ChristenUnie. “I hope it doesn’t get very ugly.”
None of them are considering quitting as a councilor. “If you take this into account, I wonder who still wants to be a representative of a political party,” says De Vries (CDA). She thinks she could not have been prepared for situations like those in the gymnasium as a new council member. “But it has made me more mature and determined.”
Also read
After ‘extreme pressure’ on council members to vote against asylum seekers’ center, the mayor resigns
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