[21]
NETHERLANDSNEWSLIVE.COMFLOWERS FOR PETER R DE VRIES6 JULY 2021
https://netherlandsnewslive.com/flowers-for-peter-r-de-vries/193618/
Long Leidsedwarsstraat
De Vries was shot on the Lange Leidsedwarsstraat around 7.30 pm just after he had attended a broadcast of RTL Boulevard as a guest. Several shots were said to have been fired. Several emergency services have been called and police are still looking for the suspect. The police have said that 64-year-old De Vries was taken to hospital with serious injuries. The police are busy with many units on a search for the suspect.
Burgernet notification
The police have issued a citizen net report indicating that the police are looking for a suspect in the vicinity of the Spiegelgracht. Police are warning the public not to approach the suspect themselves, but to call 911 immediately.
Alert
It concerns a light-skinned man with a small, slender build. He is wearing a dark green coat with camouflage patches and a black cap.
Response NVJ
The Dutch Association of Journalists (NVJ) reacted with shock to the attack on De Vries. General secretary Thomas Bruning speaks of an unimaginable message. ‘This hits journalism right in the heart’, says Bruning.
The Amsterdam triangle of mayor, police and justice held a special press conference on Tuesday evening at 11.10 pm in response to the attack on Peter R. de Vries. In addition, the chief of police of the Amsterdam Regional Police Unit Frank Paauw announced that two suspects had been arrested in a car near Leidschendam on the A4. One of them may be the shooter. According to Paauw, this suspect matches the description of the shooter. A third suspect has been arrested in Amsterdam-East. His possible involvement in the attack is being investigated by the police. Mayor Halsema has said that De Vries is currently fighting for his life.
Press conference Prime Minister Rutte and Minister Grapperhaus
Prime Minister Rutte and Minister Grapperhaus also held a special press conference on Tuesday evening. In it, both indicated that they were shocked about the attack on De Vries. ‘An attack on a courageous journalist and with that an attack on free journalism, which is so essential for our democracy,’ said Rutte. Rutte and Grapperhaus said to pray for De Vries. Grapperhaus did not answer questions about the security of de Vries.
Update Wednesday 7 July 10.45 am
The police released the identity of the two suspects on Wednesday evening on the A4 highway near Leidschendam. It concerns a 35-year-old Polish man from Maurik in Gelderland and a 21-year-old man living in Rotterdam. The third suspect who was arrested in Amsterdam East on Tuesday evening is an 18-year-old man from Amsterdam. He turned out to have nothing to do with the case and has since been released and no longer a suspect.
Update Wednesday 7 July 12.45 pm
Flowers are laid out of compassion at the place where Peter was shot.
Flowers for Peter R. de Vries
Source link Flowers for Peter R. de Vries
END OF THE ARTICLE
[22]
[22]
DUTCHNEWS.NLATTACK ON SYRIAN FAMILY A ”DISGRACE” SAYS MAJOR
https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2019/05/attack-on-syrian-family-a-disgrace-for-enschede-says-mayor/
Enschede’s mayor has described an attack on a Syrian refugee family by a gang of locals as a ‘disgrace’ and vowed the perpetrators will be prosecuted. The attack took place last week, following a row between neighbourhood children, but has only just been officially confirmed, RTV Oost reports. Reports say a number of people burst into the home of the family, took the parents outside and beat them up, leaving both with physical injuries. Mayor Onno Veldhuizen confirmed the attack at a local council meeting on Monday, saying that ‘no-one has the right to play judge and hand out physical punishment’.
Police and the local council failed to comment on the incident at the time because it had been difficult to get a handle on what really happened. ‘People were silent, sometimes out of fear, sometimes out of shame and sometimes because they approved of what happened,’ Van Veldhuizen said. The family had only moved to the Dolphia area in Enschede four months ago and has now been offered accommodation at another location. Van Veldhuizen said that apart from the physical damage the family also suffered emotionally. ‘What does this do to the victims and their children? And the children of those who took the law into their own hands? This is not the example we want to set our children,’ the mayor said. Dolphia was the scene of a protest against a refugee centre in the neighbourhood four years ago. The centre never materialised because the number of refugees fell.
END OF THE ARTICLE
REUTERS.COMDUTCH MP CONDEMNS ATTACK ON SHELTER FOR SYRIAN REFUGEES
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-europe-migrants-netherlands-idUKKCN0S40S820151010
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Saturday condemned an attack by masked men on a shelter housing Syrian refugees, the country’s worst such incident since large numbers of migrants began arriving in Europe this year.
A group of about 20 men hurled fireworks and eggs at the temporary refuge in a sports centre in the city of Woerden, near Utrecht, late on Friday.
City mayor Victor Molkenboer said the incident had “an enormous impact” on the refugees. “It recalled traumatic experiences for them,” he told a news conference.
Police said on Saturday they had arrested and charged 11 suspects aged between 19 and 30 over the attack, in which no injuries were reported.
Rutte was due to visit the shelter, which is home to nearly 150 refugees and one of more than a hundred makeshift refuges set up in the Netherlands in recent weeks.
Hours before Friday’s attack, Rutte called for calm after residents in the town of Oranje accosted the country’s deputy justice minister because they were angry about the unannounced expansion of a refugee shelter.
“You can get mad, but violence or threatening violence is out of bounds,” the conservative premier said in his weekly news conference. “I call on everyone to keep the peace and to act within the boundaries of the law.”
The Freedom Party of anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders has soared to first place in national opinion polls since Europe’s migration crisis intensified, and it now leads Rutte’s VVD Party by a sizeable margin.
Wilders says the Netherlands should shut its borders and reject all migrants or refugees, a stance that Rutte has rejected as undesirable and illegal.
After a sharp increase in the number of asylum seekers in the Netherlands in late August, the country has received 36,000 so far in 2015 compared with 25,000 in all of 2014, according to official figures.
Reporting by Toby Sterling; Editing by Helen Popper
END OF THE ARTICLE
[23]
PETER R DE VRIES
RESPECT AND ADMIRATION FOR THE REFUGEES!
RESPECT AND ADMIRATION FOR THE REFUGEES!
Enough is enough … The limit has literarily been reached for me.
I write this not only to refugees, asylum seekers and other displaced persons to encourage them, but also because I feel ashamed about the attitude of some our Dutch citizens towards these people; the way they speak and think about them.
NO PEOPLE BUT FILES
Sometimes it seems that in public debate about the refugees it is no longer about people, but only about numbers, percentages, quotas and files. Often the refugee issue is discussed in a detached and intolerant tone of voice; like asylum seekers and refugees are profiteers who are here to seek fortune
Sometimes I think we have lost sight of what terms like ’emergency’ and ‘help’ really mean since we became so prosperous after the second world war.
We are in the privileged position that we are not at war, don’t experience natural disasters or are not exposed to terrorism, rebellion or guerrillas on a daily basis.
Most of us don’t know from personal experience how good if feels it is when you receive help from others, to be offered a safe haven, when you are in distress.
WHERE WAS YOUR CRADLE?
The ironic consequence seems to be that the prosperous and privileged people find it difficult to help others.
As if it was your own merit that you cradle is in the safe, protected Holland – and that therefore, it is also the fault of the refugee is that his cradle was in Somalia, Afghanistan or any other country that is in an unfortunate situation.
Strikingly the “Engelandvaarders” – Dutch refugees who managed to cross over to the UK during the war- are still being praised in the Netherlands and usually highly decorated.
But if you’ve managed to escape from Somalia, Congo, Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan under precarious conditions and with much hardship – often leaving behind family, loved ones and possessions -, travelled thousands of kilometers to Europe, to the Netherlands, no medals will await you, but particularly exhaustive judicial procedures, long interrogations and a lot of cynicism and suspicion.
CHALLENGE OR NECESSITY?
It has always amazed me how easily and lightly people condemn refugees about leaving their homeland; like it is a tempting challenge to build a new life in another country, with an incomprehensible language, different culture and a harsh climate. Like people just do that for fun…!
I have traveled extensively, and frankly, I have never encountered that judgemental attitude during my travels though poor countries.
If people have a choice, they choose pretty much all for a decent, happy life in their own country, with their own language and culture, with their own family and friends.
But people who leave their home country as refugees often have no choice, if they want to survive at least, be free, have access to food and medical care.
CHOCOLATE SPRINKLES, PEANUT BUTTER AND DROP…
If they go on a two week holiday to the Costa Brava – yes on vacation, not ‘on the run’ – they are being waved off by family at the airport as if they are never coming back again. Their suitcase contains typical Dutch chocolate sprinkles, peanut butter and liquorice. At the destination they will only order Heineken Beer, because that is what they are familiar with.
At night they will also gather for dinner in a restaurant owned by a Dutch expat serving familiar Dutch food instead of trying out the local cuisine.
And on the return trip in the plane, they are imagining themselves arriving at home and first prepare a whole wheat sandwich with Gouda cheese, a glass of milk and craving herring with onions.
Shame on the asylum seekers and refugees who refuse to adapt… Development aid must be reduced, because it can be much better spent. And the borders should be closed because the ‘quotas have been reached’ …
These thoughts and opinions annoy me immensely.
RESPECT AND ADMIRATION
I have often enough been in different places around the world to know how unpleasant it feels when you are not welcome; when people look at you with suspicion and you are excluded or discriminated against.
And I was there with money in my back pocket, legal papers, perfect communication and the reassuring prospect that I would be comfortably flying home again soon.
And that is why I would like to emphasize that I have the upmost respect and admiration for those who have abandoned their homes in desperation for doom and disaster and are trying, with great difficulty, to build up a new life in a foreign country.
In my opinion they should never have to hide or be ashamed; they can be proud, with their heads held high, because what they have achieved, what they have defied and what they have sacrificed more than most of us would dare or could bear. That is something we should be more aware off…
That’s my two cents.
Peter R. de Vries
END OF THE ARTICLE
[24]
PETER R DE VRIES
RESPECT AND ADMIRATION FOR THE REFUGEES!
SEE FOR THE WHOLE TEXT, NOTE 23
[25]
ADHESIEBETUIGING AAN PETER R DE VRIES
Toegezonden op 31 october 2015
ADHESIEBETUIGING MET UW HOUDING TEGENOVER VLUCHTELINGEN
[English translation of the title of the appreciation mail:
TOKEN OF APPRECIATION TO PETER R DE VRIES
Sent at 31 october 2015
TOKEN OF APPRECIATION WITH YOUR ATTITUDE AGAINST
REFUGEES]
Geachte heer Peter de Vries,
Na de aanvankelijke solidariteitsinitiatieven metde vluchtelingen- die trouwens nog in volle gang zijn, gelukkig\maar, een verontrustende tegenreactie van xenofobie, Islamofobieetc.Het begon bij de tirade van PVV leider G Wilders over een ”asiweltsunami”en ”testosteronbommen” en zijn giftige ”oproep tot verzet”, die hijal gauw in daden omzette door het land door te reizen om de bevolkingtegen de vluchtelingen op te hitsen.Gevolgd door lieden, die in allerlei Gemeenten, Purmerend, Oranje, Enschede,Rotterdam tegen de komst van vluchtelingen protesteerden, met als dieptepunt de bestorming van een noodopvang inWoerden.En dan was er ook nog Steenbergen, met een nare anti vluchtelingendemonstratieen een dreigende houding op de vergadering over vluchtelingen.Bij al dat ”verzet” zit een flinke portie neo nazi’s, die het land doorreist, ofop straat demonstreeert, zoals anti Islambeweging Pegida in Utrecht [11 october en weer 8 november]Maar ook zanger Gerard Joling liet zich in een Metro artikelhetzerig en negatief uit over vluchtelingen.http://www.astridessed.nl/ingezonden-stuk-aan-mediagerard-joling-over-vluchtelingenxenofobie/Daarom vind ik het zo hartverwarmend en verademend om uwpositieve reactie over de vluchtelingen te lezen.Juist van u, als een van de ”BN’ers” is het belangrijk, omdatu in het nieuws komt en zo toch mensen aan het denken kan zetten.Ook heb ik respect voor u, dat u tegen de hetze durft in te gaan, net zo alsDasja Abresch, de vrouw, die het tijdens de bijeenkomst in Steenbergenvoor de vluchtelingen opnam en werd uitgejouwd.
Nogmaals, meneer de Vries, bedankt.
Geluiden als de uwe zijn in deze tijd niet alleen welkom.
Maar broodnodig!
SAY IT LOUD, SAY IT CLEAR, REFUGEES ARE WELCOMEHERE!
Astrid Essed
Amsterdam
[26]
UNHCR NEDERLAND
TEKEN PETITIE TEGEN STAATLOOSHEID IN NEDERLAND
[English translation]
SIGN PETITION AGAINST STATELESSNESS IN THE NETHERLANDS
Ieder mens heeft recht op een nationaliteit! Dat is wereldwijd door alle staten erkend. Toch zijn er in Nederland heel veel mensen staatloos.
“Je leeft, maar je kunt niet bewijzen dat je bestaat”
Als je staatloos bent, heb je geen officiële nationaliteit en geen paspoort. Je kunt niet vrij reizen. Staatlozen voelen zich kwetsbaar en hebben het gevoel er niet echt bij te horen.
Teken dan de petitie en geef staatlozen een nieuwe kans!
END OF THE PETITION
[27]
”State Secretary Ankie Broekers-Knol of Asylum Affairs makes it possible that ten thousand so-called general pardonners can still get a passport. That is a breakthrough after a months-long battle that was fought in parliament and the media. Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries helped the group of general pardonners to draw attention to the case. “I will always be grateful to him for what he has done.”
GROUP OF STATELESS PERSONS GETS PASSPORT: ”IT IS THE
MERIT OF PETER R DE VRIES”
7 JULY 2021
State Secretary Ankie Broekers-Knol of Asylum Affairs makes it possible that ten thousand so-called general pardonners can still get a passport. That is a breakthrough after a months-long battle that was fought in parliament and the media. Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries helped the group of general pardonners to draw attention to the case. “I will always be grateful to him for what he has done.”
State Secretary Ankie Broekers-Knol of Asylum Affairs makes it possible that ten thousand so-called general pardonners can still get a passport.
That is a breakthrough after a months-long battle that was fought in parliament and the media.
Crime reporter Peter R. de Vries helped the group of general pardonners to draw attention to the case.
“I will always be grateful to him for what he has done.”
“Peter is a hero. He is the only celebrity who has stood up for our cause,” says Yosef Tekeste-Yemane.
“I hope he will still get what he has achieved.”
Tekeste-Yemane belongs to a group of ten thousand general pardonners who received a permanent residence permit during the general pardon in 2007, but no passport.
He has been living in the Netherlands for 27 years.
At the age of two, he fled Ethiopia with his family.
He has a job as a controller at energy company Essent and would like to buy a house.
But he can’t, any more than his younger brother can become a judge or prosecutor after graduating from law school.
They also cannot vote or travel to countries like the US, China or the United Arab Emirates.
In recent years, Tekeste-Yemane tried unsuccessfully to get the necessary papers from the Ethiopian embassy.
‘De Vries got into the subject’
Out of desperation, Tekeste-Yemane turned to Peter R. De Vries last year.
“He saw the injustice and got caught up in it, he was determined to help us and hoped the media would warm to this.”
And indeed it worked.
In January a piece by Tekeste-Yemane appeared in
Trouw
and he was on
Op1
together with De Vries
.
In the House of Representatives, SP MP Jasper van Dijk and his CDA colleague Madeleine van Toorenburg, who have since left, made a strong case for the cause.
“If you give permission to stay in the Netherlands forever, you must ensure that people can participate fully,” Van Toorenburg told NU.nl earlier.
“We saw that this group ended up in Kafkaesque situations, then you create second-class citizens.”
A first breakthrough in April
Broekers-Knol repeatedly refused to implement motions passed by the House of Representatives.
But in April she still met parliament: for part of the group the requirement to submit a birth certificate or passport from the country of origin was dropped.
For Tekeste-Yemane and three thousand others who were minors at the time of the amnesty, the wait was over.
‘Man with a big heart’
But Broekers-Knol wanted to further investigate the other seven thousand files, she informed the – irritated – House of Representatives.
That investigation has now been completed and the State Secretary has decided that “on the basis of the investigation results” and on the basis of “specific and exceptional circumstances”, the obligation to submit supporting documents also lapses for the rest of the group.
And so, for example, the parents of Tekeste-Yemena, who have also lived here for more than twenty years, and all those others will soon be able to go to the town hall in their hometown to apply for a passport.
Tekeste-Yemane: “It is unbelievable that one day after the attack on Peter this letter comes. It was he who managed this for ten thousand people. I will always be grateful to him for what he has done for us. is a man with a big heart.”
“The fact that the letter was sent to the House today is not related to the attack on Peter R. de Vries,” a spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice and Security told NU.nl.
87
This happened after the attack on crime journalist Peter R. de Vries
Source: nunl
END OF THE ARTICLE
[28]
“I hope he will still get what he has achieved.”
GROUP OF STATELESS PERSONS GETS PASSPORT: ”IT IS THE
MERIT OF PETER R DE VRIES”
7 JULY 2021
SEE FOR THE WHOLE TEXT, NOTE 27
[29]
‘”He saw the injustice and got caught up in it, he was determined to help us and hoped the media would warm to this.”
GROUP OF STATELESS PERSONS GETS PASSPORT: ”IT IS THE
MERIT OF PETER R DE VRIES”
7 JULY 2021
SEE FOR THE WHOLE TEXT, NOTE 27
[30]
WIKIPEDIA
PETER R DE VRIES
BBC
PETER R DE VRIES: DUTCH CRIME REPORTER DIES AFTER
SHOOTING
The prominent Dutch crime reporter Peter R de Vries, who was shot and seriously wounded in central Amsterdam nine days ago, has died.
“Peter fought to the end, but was unable to win the battle,” a statement from his relatives said.
The 64-year-old was shot in the head minutes after leaving a TV studio.
The shooting shocked the Netherlands, where Mr de Vries was well-known for his investigations of mobsters and drug lords. Two suspects were arrested.
Mr de Vries had won critical acclaim for his reporting on the Dutch underworld – including the 1983 kidnapping of the beer millionaire Freddy Heineken.
The statement released by his relatives on Thursday said he died “surrounded by the people who love him”.
“Peter has lived by his conviction: ‘On bended knee is no way to be free’,” the statement added.
The family asked for space to process his death in peace.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said the veteran journalist was “afraid of nothing and no-one”.
“We owe it to Peter R de Vries to ensure that justice takes its course,” he tweeted.
Mr de Vries was attacked on the evening of 6 July while walking away from a television studio following a chat show on the Lange Leidsedwarsstraat in central Amsterdam.
Five shots were fired at close range and he was hit in the head.
His son, Royce de Vries, said at the time that the family’s “worst nightmare came true”.
Award-winning journalist
Well known for his coverage of the criminal underworld, Mr de Vries covered many high-profile crimes, including the Heineken abduction.
In 2013, Mr Heineken’s kidnapper, Willem Holleeder, was convicted of making threats against the journalist.
One of the Netherlands’ most notorious gangsters, Holleeder was given a life sentence in 2019 for his involvement in five murders.
A novel Mr de Vries wrote about the case was later adapted into the movie Kidnapping Freddy Heineken, starring Anthony Hopkins.
The journalist also won an Emmy Award for a television show he made about Natalee Holloway, a US teenager who disappeared on the Caribbean island of Aruba in 2005.
He frequently acted as a spokesman for witnesses in police or court cases, and had been acting as an adviser to Nabil B, a former gang member testifying in the case against alleged drug lord Ridouan Taghi.
Mr de Vries had previously faced danger because of his work and needed police protection after receiving threats in connection with his coverage of criminal cases.
In 2019, police told him he was on the hit list of the Netherlands’ most wanted criminal.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tweeted her condolences, with the message: “Investigative journalists are vital to our democracies. We must do everything we can to protect them.”
The two men held on suspicion of the murder are a 21-year-old from Rotterdam and a 35-year-old Pole. Police have not described them in any detail.
END OF THE ARTICLE