Reality Upside Down in the Netherlands

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It doesn’t just happen in Britain.

In the southeastern Dutch province of North Brabant, halfway between the cities of Eindhoven and Nijmegen, lies a town called Uden, which has a population of approximately 38,000 and is a part of the municipality of Maashorst. On the morning of April 18, Maashorst’s municipal council held a meeting at which it was addressed by a resident of Uden named Seb van Lier.

Let it be said that van Lier cuts an imposing figure. He brings to mind John Fetterman, the massive, broad-shouldered, bald-headed senator from Pennsylvania. Van Lier, unlike Fetterman, has a shaggy salt-and-pepper beard; and he arrived at this public meeting dressed, like Fetterman, in a dark hoodie. As you can see in the video of his remarks, which the valiant Dutch commentator Eva Vlaardingerbroek posted on X, van Lier began by telling the council that on January 10, one of his five daughters, aged 15, was “brutally raped” by a Syrian asylum seeker, and that ever since that day she’s experienced severe physical and psychological suffering.

Van Lier looks like a hell of a tough dude, but after spelling out these basic facts, he choked up. One of the council members asked him if he wanted a glass of water. He said no. After a pause he resumed speaking. In his view, he said, the mayor and the council were partially responsible for his daughter’s suffering. Why? Because “we feel that the rapist was portrayed as the victim and we, the family, as the perpetrator.” Because the council had been “playing down the seriousness of the case” and trying to “cover it up.” Because the therapist who’d been appointed by the council to treat van Lier’s daughter had advised him, van Lier, not to tell the council his daughter’s story. Because in statements to the media, the mayor of Maashorst, Hans van de Pas, had suggested that he didn’t believe the 15-year-old’s account of her rape. Because the mayor and council had seen fit to publicly emphasize that the alleged perpetrator lived not in Maashorst but in the nearby town of Veghel (so what?) and that he was a minor (even though there was no reliable way of establishing his age).

Van Lier had additional grievances. He’d been depicted in the media not as a legitimately troubled father but as a “rioter.” He’d been arrested by the police “with great violence.” Most egregious of all, the perpetrator had not been arrested. As of April 18, he was still walking free.

Unsurprisingly, the rape of van Lier’s daughter didn’t make any of the Netherlands’ several national newspapers. Nor did van Lier’s remarks to the Maashorst council. It was left to Bart Nijman, who maintains his own news website, to report on van Lier’s appearance before the municipal council, to explain some of the details therein, and to provide some background.

In recent years, according to Nijman, there have been “several riots in the municipality of Maashorst because of the proposed establishment of three centers,” not only in Uden but also in the nearby towns of Schaijk and Zeeland. These planned centers are intended to serve as residences not only for asylum seekers but also for young Dutch people, Ukrainian refugees, and others – an obvious formula for disaster.

Already, noted Nijman, the presence in and around Maashorst of asylum seekers from the Muslim world had resulted in an increase in crimes and assorted mayhem in the nearby town of Grave, and, earlier this year, in the gang-rape of a woman in another nearby town, Helmond. Nijman pointed out that instead of being instantly deported, the Helmond rapists had been sentenced to undergo expensive psychiatric treatment – as if their common crime were a result of mental disorders rather than of having been taught since childhood to view uncovered infidel women as ripe for rape.

And why had van Lier been dismissed as a “rioter” and arrested violently by the police? Here’s what happened: in recent weeks, Maashorst’s city fathers have held a series of “consultation evenings” in Uden at which they’ve spelled out their plans for the asylum center. Some of these events have “gotten out of hand,” with locals venting their outrage over the municipality’s agenda. It was at one such event that van Lier was arrested and ordered to stay away from the meeting site.

A Dutch blogger, Jan Bennink, provided some more information. First, about van Lier’s arrest: “Seb, the desperate father, was beaten up and taken away on a square in front of a snack bar in Uden, when he, not even so loudly, had demanded justice for his young daughter, who will never be the same again.”  Bennick also filled in some facts about the perpetrator. His name is still unknown to the public, his identity kept a secret by the Central Agency for the Reception of Asylum Seekers. And instead of being arrested (or deported), he was moved, apparently for his own protection, from one asylum center to another, elsewhere in the Netherlands – where, as Bennink underscores, he’ll be free “to strike again.”

I’ve mentioned that the Netherlands’ major national newspapers have failed to report on the rape of van Lier’s daughter. But they have covered these episodes of unrest in Maashorst. And they’ve covered them in exactly the way one would expect: they’ve portrayed the construction of new asylum centers as benign acts by a virtuous political class, and depicted the citizen protests as outbreaks of bigotry.

In reality, of course, the unrest is thoroughly legitimate: Dutch citizens, like their equally fed-up counterparts in Britain and other European countries, are shouting a loud and angry “no” to arrogant political leaders who are indifferent to their wishes and unconcerned about their welfare. Alas, it will take more than a few righteous protests – and the occasional agitated speech to a municipal council – to save places like Maashorst from their fates. Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and The Hague have long since felt as if they were lost to Islam; the city fathers of Maashorst and other small municipalities in the interior seem perversely eager to play catch-up. And it’s innocent young people like Seb van Lier’s daughter who are paying the price for this madness.