Dutch election highlights divisions about religion and immigration
Dutch Muslims are breathing a sigh of relief after the worse-than-expected performance by anti-Islam populist Geert Wilders in the mid-March election.
“We have trust in the future” of this traditionally welcoming country, said Rasit Bal of the Muslim government contact organization, an advocacy group for Muslims in the Netherlands, which feared that a victory by Wilders’s PVV party would strengthen anti-immigrant sentiment in the Netherlands.
Gerard de Korte, bishop of s’Hertogenbosch, said the outcome shows that Dutch voters rejected Wilders’s extreme rhetoric, which included calls to close mosques and ban the Qur’an.
