Dutch Anti-Islam Lawmaker Tells Migrants Not to Come to Netherlands
Mike Corder, Huffington Post, April 22, 2015
Dutch anti-Islam opposition lawmaker Geert Wilders has copied part of Australia’s approach to stopping boat migrants by making a video telling would-be asylum seekers considering making the treacherous boat crossing from North Africa to Europe: “You will not make the Netherlands home.”
The video, posted on Wilders’ website, echoes a similar message recorded by the Australian government last year that warns immigrants: “Anyone who travels illegally by boat will not make Australia home.”
In Wilders’ video, which could be seen on his Freedom Party’s website on Wednesday, he says in English: “No way.”
Wilders, whose popularity in the Netherlands is based mainly on his tough anti-Islam, anti-immigration rhetoric, then switches to speaking in Dutch to call for European Union navy patrols to send back all migrants they intercept and not transport them to Europe.
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In Australia, Prime Minister Tony Abbott also suggested Europe follow his country’s lead in turning away asylum seekers’ boats.
“The only way you can stop the deaths is to stop the people-smuggling trade. The only way you can stop the deaths is, in fact, to stop the boats,” Abbott told reporters in the nation’s capital, Canberra, on Tuesday.
