Immigration service IND informed Icke by letter on Thursday that his arrival is a danger to public order and that his ideas could lead to violence against politicians. Several counter-demonstrations were announced around the demonstration in Amsterdam where he was to speak.
Yesilgöz (VVD), when asked Friday after the Council of Ministers: ‘Amsterdam has requested the IND to investigate whether there are grounds for banning this man from our country. This turned out to be the case on the basis of information from, among others, intelligence service AIVD. It is not the first time that such a consideration has been made about a person on the basis of danger to public order and national security.’
If Icke arrives by car on Sunday, can he be arrested?
“Then he can be told that he is not welcome here and that he must leave the country.”
To what extent does this conflict with freedom of expression?
‘They are indeed clashing fundamental rights. Freedom of expression and freedom of demonstration are fundamental rights. But they are not unlimited. Here we looked: can we set limits in advance? Is that necessary based on what someone has done and said in the past? Hate imams are earlier examples of this.’
Is it government policy to take firmer action against extreme expressions, such as running away during general political reflections?
“Not by memo or anything like that, if that’s what you mean. But everyone feels that our democratic constitutional state is under pressure. This requires action, by being resilient and by offering contradiction. We don’t want people to bring poison into our society. It’s important, and you heard me say it in the HJ Schoo lecture, that we push back. We live in a time that demands resilient democrats.’
That seems to be a different time than 2009, when VVD leader Mark Rutte could still say about Holocaust denial: ‘When a study scholar who has gone astray says so, without any ulterior motive, while libraries are full of books that prove that it is has taken place, he can say so.’
‘I don’t have an analysis ready of what it was like fifteen years ago compared to now. What I see specifically when it comes to anti-Semitism is that it seems to be becoming more and more normalized. Like it’s just an opinion. And it isn’t. We have to stay sharp. There’s a lot of dog whistles behind it, rhetoric about reptiles and sewer rats that has a history. We now have a National Coordinator for Combating Anti-Semitism, among other things to recognize that. It’s not a philosophical discussion, it’s poison. Jew-hatred should never be commonplace.’