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Dutch opinion leaders plead for tolerance

Posted : Wed, 02 Jan 2008 09:27:05 GMT
By : DPA
Category : Europe (World)
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Amsterdam - Dutch opinion leaders published a page-size advertisment in the daily Trouw on Wednesday calling for tolerance and a softer tone in the debate about migration and Islam. In their statement, the 717 signatories, including prominent politicians, artists, authors, relgious leaders and academics - called on the Dutch to "break the downward cycle of intolerance and indifference" in the Netherlands.

Dutch nationals can support the statement by signing it on the website www.benoemenenbouwen.nl.

The statement was initiated by Christian Democrat Doekle Terpstra, who called upon Dutch society to counter the "wilderization," a sarcastic reference to Dutch liberal-right politician Geert Wilders, one of the Netherlands' most outspoken Islam critics.

Responding to the publication in Trouw, Geert Wilders called the signatories "silly and naive fools."

Copyright DPA

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Dutch opinion leaders plead for tolerance
By: Sandra , Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:34:05 GMT

Many of those very people who signed that website are the very ones who hide the fact that they are the very ones who support far right ideas and vote for extreme right anti-immigration bills. So what good does that website do when voters can hide who they vote for in the first place? The only way to make it work is by making names public after they vote, and for whome they vote for. Many are hypocrites claim to be anti Wilders or Verdonk and then admit or brag they voted for them to their peers.



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