Tag: Netherlands

Televised Exhumation in the Netherlands

When Dutch political candidate Pim Fortuyn was shot and killed by an animal rights activist, an official funeral was held in the Netherlands even though ultimately Fortuyn’s body would be interred in an Italian cemetary.

So they’re finally getting around to digging up his coffin to ship it to Italy, which isn’t that odd, but what is bizarre is that the exhumation is going to be televised live on Dutch national television.

The decision to broadcast the exhumation has apparently caused quite a bit of controversy. The Guardian had an amusing quote from Willem Breedveld, who it identifie as a “senior media commentator,

It will be the first time someone in the Netherlands has been dug up on TV. We normally don’t do it out of respect for the dead. But (his supporters) want to show a sort of resurrection of Pim Fortuyn just like the resurrection of the lord, and that’s blasphemy.

Fortuyn’s reburial in Italy will also be televised live. Weird.

Animal Advocate Was on Van der Graaf's Hit List

Animal rights activist Volkert Van der Graaf is the prime suspect in the assassination of Netherlands politicians Pim Fortuyn last week, but what was Van der Graaf’s motive? Was he angered at Fortuyn’s views of fur farming and the environment? So far Van der Graaf is not talking, but details from the police investigation are coming to light that suggest possible motives.

Netherlands newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported today that the hit list that police recovered from a search of Van der Graaf’s car and home included 19-year-old Joost Eerdmans. Eerdmans was the closest thing that the Fortuyn’s List Party had to a point man on animal protection issues.

Eerdmans is a member of the Dutch Animal Protection Association and e-mails from an environmental/animal rights group called Wakker Dier had been forwarded to Eerdmans. The e-mails inquired about the party’s environmental and animal policies.

Eerdmans replied to the e-mails that since the party had just formed it did not have explicit positions on these issues yet, but as an animal lover Eerdmans promised to fight for animal-friendly positions.

Wakker Dier worked closely with Van der Graaf’s organization, Environment Offensive. Police are investigating whether or not Van der Graaf learned of Eerdmans’ involvement with animal and environmental policy within the Fortuyn List Party from the e-mails exchanged with Wakker Dier.

So far, two of the four people on van der Graaf’s hit list were people within the Fortuyn’s List Party who were likely to have had significant influence over animal and environmental policy in the Netherlands after the May 15 elections and who did not share Van der Graaf’s extreme position on either topic.

Source:

Justitie onderzoekt e-mails van milieuclub. Olof van Joolen, Algemeen Dagblad, May 14, 2002.

More Details Emerge about Animal Rights Activist Who Allegedly Murdered Pim Fortuyn

Details emerging in the ongoing investigation of the murder of Netherlands politicians Pim Fortuyn are making the extent of his killer’s animal rights fanaticism more clear as well as suggesting possible links to other crimes.

The Sunday Times (London) reports that while in his teens, accused killer Volkert van der Graaf, 32, founded the Zeeland Animal Liberation Front which committed acts of vandalism that primarily targeted restaurants.

Van der Graaf was involved with anti-medical research and environmental groups until 1992 when he founded Environment Offensive which was opposed to all animal agriculture. Van der Graaf and others in Environment Offensive earned the enmity of farmers by relentlessly challenging applications to expand animal farms.

How Environment Offensive was funded is raising a lot of questions. It received 100,000 Pounds from the state lottery, but farmers claim that it also acted as a sort of shakedown scheme whereby farmers willing to pay enough money via a third party broker could buy off the group and avoid the legal hassles.

One such farmer, Pieter Van der Camp, claimed that he paid 20,000 pounds to just such a broker and had no more problems with Environment Offensive. The Sunday Times reported that the environmental group refused to comment on the allegations.

Van der Graaf is now a suspect in an earlier 1996 murder, and there is also evidence linking him to other animal rights-related crimes.

On December 22, 1996, somebody shot environmental officer Chris Van de Werken while he was out for a jog near his home. Van de Werken and van der Graaf had clashed before, with Van der Graaf believing that the environmental officer was far too accommodating to farmers in the area.

Moreover, the killing of Van de Werken closely resembles that of Fortuyn’s. Van de Werken was shot multiple times at very close range. The bullets police recovered from Van de Werken’s body were 9mm silver-tip hollow-point bullets — a type of ammunition that is rare in the Netherlands and just happens to be the same type of ammunition used in the Fortuyn killing.

Van der Graaf was apparently questioned about the murder at the time, but the case was closed as unsolved in 1997. It has now been reopened.

The Sunday Times also reported that documents and computer records seized from van der Graaf’s home also provide a possible link between van der Graaf and a 1999 arson attack on a plant that produced feed for mink and a series of 1995 incidents at a poultry farm.

Source:

Fortuyn killer linked to earlier death. Peter Conradi, Sunday Times (London), May 12, 2002.

Don't Pet the Animal Rights Movement

After the world learned that it was not an immigrant or a Muslim but an animal rights activist that murdered Netherlands political candidate Pim Fortuyn, there was something of a sigh of relief that the assassination would not further perturb relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. The Daily Telegraph’s Alice Thomson thinks that sort of reaction is way off the mark. Thomson writes,

Thank God he’s not a Muslim, said the commentators, but they’re wrong to be relieved. Animal rights activist may not be Al-Qa’eda, but they include terrorists, too. At worst, the fundamentalists have warped the concept of the humane care of animals into a form of human hating. As [alleged assassin Volkert] van der Graaf’s neighbour said: “He didn’t care about humans at all.”

In Britain, after the IRA and its splinter groups, fundamentalist animal rights activists have committed the worst atrocities on the mainland: the letter-bomb that injured a pest controller’s child, firebombs for doctors, hounding staff at Huntingdon Life Sciences.

Carla Lane, the television playwright who founded Protesters’ Animal Information Network, recently wrote to Tony Blair to warn of an increase by extreme animal rights activists because they were becoming disillusion with trying to achieve change democratically.

And yet, as Thomson points out, Blair’s government continues to play a game of cat and mouse with the animal rights movement, alternately saying that it will crack down on the extremism only to then turn around and try to deliver legislation to achieve the movement’s goals. This month, for example, the Labor government floated an absurd Bill of Rights for pets.

Thomson warns that this is a dangerous game to play. “Mr. Blair may think the animal rights groups are cute and containable,” she writes, “but they’ve got savage teeth and shouldn’t be petted.”

Source:

Blair could be bitten by the hands that feed him. Alice Thomson, The Daily Telegraph (London), May 10, 2002.

Animal Rights Activist "Meticulously Planned" Fortuyn Assassination

Contrary to early speculation that the assassination of Netherlands political candidate Pim Fortuyn was an opportunity killing, animal rights activist and suspected killer Volkert van der Graaf meticulously planned the murder at the relatively high-security radio and television complex.

When police searched van der Graaf’s home, they found detailed maps of the complex which van der Graaf allegedly used to plan his crime. He apparently used an unguarded door in the rear of the complex to avoid numerous security checkpoints.

Meanwhile, more information about potential motives and even a possible link to an unsolved 1996 murder emerged in media reports about van der Graaf.

Leading the speculation is the possibility that Fortuyn was murdered over a dispute van der Graaf had with a pig farmer. Van der Graaf had repeatedly squared off in court against pig farmer Wien van den Brink. Van der Graaf accused van den Brink of violating Dutch animal welfare laws. Van den Brink was also happened to be a supporter of Fortuyn.

Dutch police are also investigating van der Graaf’s possible involvement in an unsolved 1996 murder. In that case, an environmental officer who worked closely with farmers was shot multiple times and his body dumped in a nearby ditch.

Farmers who were used to lining up against van der Graaf in court described him as fanatical. Van derBrink was quoted as saying, “I thought he was a real fundamentalist. I actually wanted nothing to do with him. He was as closed as a box and convinced he was right.”

Van der Graaf spent two years fighting Peter Olofson’s application to raise cattle. Olofson described van der Graaf as a fanatic,

It was animals, animals, animals.

…

Most farmers around here know him. His mission was to destroy all our farms.

Even so, Olofson said he was shocked that van der Graaf was the prime suspect in the Fortuyn murder. “I couldn’t believe it,” Olofson told The Times of London. “He was a fanatic, but I can’t believe he murdered a person.”

Sources:

Animal activists ‘meticulously planned killing’. David Graves, The Daily Telegraph, May 9, 2002.

Activist charged with killing Fortuyn. Ian Bickerton, The Financial Times (London), May 9, 2002.

Activist remanded for Fortuyn murder: Mystery surrounds ‘quiet, hardworking’ animal rights campaigner. Ian Black, The Guardian (London), May 9, 2002.

Accused vegan was ‘a fanatic who cared only for animals’. Martin Fletcher, The Times (London), May 9, 2002.

Pim Fortuyn Shot, Likely Dead

Several news sites are reporting an assassination attempt against Dutch right winger Pim Fortuyn. According to CNN, Dutch Radio is reporting that Fortuyn was shot several times in the head after leaving a radio interview.

I caught most of a radio interview with Fortuyn last week related to the strong showing by his party, Livable Netherlands. Fortuyn was the leader of LN until the party removed him after he said that laws banning discrimination against immigrants should be overturned.

The thing that caught my attention in the interview is that Fortuyn is not a typical right wing politician. He’s an openly gay man who is opposed to immigration from Muslim countries on the ground that Islam is a backward religion because, among other things, it is intolerant of homosexuality.

Fortuyn wrote a book about his views, “Against the Islamicization of Our Culture” and found rather surprising levels of support for LN. He was especially popular with young voters, half of whom in some surveys said they would vote for LN.

Elections in the Netherlands are set to take place on May 15.

Update: CNN now reports that Dutch police confirm that Fortuyn is dead.