The Dutch far-right are turning to EDL style mobilisation, calling for a provocative march through a largely Muslim area of the Hague on 20th September.

 

New extreme right organization Pro Patria has called the demonstration. However crucially the PVV, Geert Wilders, right-wing Freedom party, has also called for its supporters to take to the streets. This represents a major step in the link between the ‘respectable’ far-right Islamophobic parliamentary parties in Europe and the street movements.

 

Pro Patria already held its first demonstration in The Hague back in August. They organized the march right through the heart of a largely immigrant area neighbourhood called the Schilderswijk. They mustered a few hundred, including a number of known fascists and neo-nazis.

 

Anti-fascist research group, Kafka published a research article on the extreme right-wing group claiming that Pro Patria are effectively a front group for extreme right organisations such as Identitair Verzet and other far-right groups. Identitair Verzet were behind a campaign to close down an Islamic school in June. One of the driving figures behind them and Pro Patria is Paul Peters, who became known to anti-fascists after being convicted for desecrating a Jewish graveyard.

 

You can watch a video of their August demonstration here. A local dutch paper covering the 10th called it “The Dutch waking up to the threat called ISIS”. As with the EDL here, Pro Patria have,despite the presence of notorious anti-semites in their ranks, been waving the Israeli flag. Demonstrator and former PVV councillor Paul ter Linden was seen brandishing an Israeli flag, the rising trend in many far-right protests across Europe. The main slogan of the march “No Jihad in our street” was revamped from the campaign motto of Vlaams Belang “Without Jihad Street” used in 2007 by the Flemish Nationalist Party.

 

According to the sources of AD, a tabloid paper in Holland, the announced demonstration in September will not be allowed to go through the Schilderswijk area after the confrontations this month between Pro Patria protesters and provoked local residents who started throwing stones at Pro Patria. The plans for the demonstration of September have now been moved to the neighbouring district of Transvaal. Well let’s wait and see how local residents and antifascists react.

 

 

Watch this space and check the website http://www.afanederland.org/ for more updates.