“The butcher relenteth not at the bleating of the lamb; neither is the heart of the cruel moved with distress”
Can’t stay in your home country because the theocratic state’ll kill you for your sexual nature? In fear for your life? Need asylum? Holland sounds like a good idea doesn’t it? The Dutch’re gay-friendly aren’t they?
Think again. The vast majority of Dutch may be, but there’s one who isn’t, and she’s the one with the power to send gay Iranian asylum seekers back to this potential fate. This woman is Minister Rita Verdonk. Cross-posted from Wissewords :
Godverdonkt
If it isn’t already, I’m sure it’ll just be a matter of time before Verdonk becomes a proper curse, as the Bitch Queen of Den Haag keeps coming up with new reasons to hate her. She really embodies the worst of the Netherlands: muleheaded, not as smart as she thinks she is, rude, obnoxious and utterly convinced of her own righteousness.
This week two new reasons to hate her came up. First there was the case of Ta?da Pasic, the daughter of refugees from Kosovo, who returned there last year. Ta?da then returned illegally to the Netherlands to finish her VWO degree; she only needs a few more months to finish her study. Verdonk has refused categorically to let her stay and finish her study, even though it would hurt nobody to do so. Any other would be proud this girl so values a Dutch education that she took the risk to get here “illegally”, but not Verdonk. But then Verdonk doesn’t care about potentially ruining Ta?da’s future, she just cares about herself and her image…
More serious is the intention Verdonk has of returning gay Iranian asylum seekers to a country that has already shown to have no problems with executing people just for being homosexual. Her argument? “If you keep your homosexuality a secret you won’t be tortured or killed”. How immoral can someone be? How far can you sink?
Is it any wonder a group of Dutch bloggers have started to Googlebomb Rita Verdonk, linking her page at the governmental website to the word vreemdelingenhaat, “hatred of foreigners”?
Bigot would also be a good link…
Tags: Rita Verdonk, Dutch politics
Many American blogs have picked up on this story and seem to think deportations are imminent. As an appeal is pending, that’s not the case; all action is stayed pending the appeal’s outcome. In any case, for Verdonk do this would directly contravene the European Convention on Human Rights and any case taken under the convention could take years to come to court. Verdonk is nototious for racist stunts like this, which never come to anything for that very same reason, the ECHR. She’s merely striking a political posture to boost her standing with the rock-ribbed, racist, petty bourgeouisie – there’s an election coming up, and Verdonk is now all over the news. Prima!
None of which negates the basic fact that she’s knowingly putting people in fear for their lives, for her own petty political career. It doesn’t matter that the deportations are unlikely to happen. These Iranians have already been exiled and may never go home again or ever see their families. That in itself is a punishment. Then to be threatened with potential death in the country, indeed by the country you thought you were at least physically safe in, having committed no crime except being who you are, is just plain despicable.
But then it’s Verdonk, we shouldn’t be surprised.
