Zwolle town council has passed plans to build an accommodation centre for 400 asylum centres in the teeth despite coming under pressure from PVV party leader Geert Wilders to block the scheme.
Nine out of 10 parties on the town council approved the site at De Tippe, in a newbuild neighbourhood of the Overijssel capital, which is due to open in 2027.
Wilders travelled to the town to address a crowd of protesters gathered outside the council building. Several people were arrested and riot police were deployed to contain the crowd. Counter-protests were also staged by supporters of the facility.
“We shouldn’t be turning the Netherlands into one huge asylum facility,” the far-right leader, flanked by bodyguards, shouted into a megaphone. “The idea of putting around 400 asylum seekers in Zwolle near houses, a school and a station – what kind of idiot dreams that up?”
Opponents of the scheme packed the public gallery, while a petition of 5,500 signatures was handed in before the meeting. Several people walked out of the meeting just before the vote, protesting loudly.
Police station
The nine parties agreed to back the plan after agreeing with the council executive to limit the number of residents to 400 and install a police station in the neighbourhood.
Zwolle is required to accommodate 650 asylum seekers under the so-called “spreading law”, designed to ensure all municipalities house a proportionate share of refugees.
Wilders said the council should ignore the law and called on protesters not to give up if the plan was approved. “As far as I’m concerned, the times when we accepted this are over,” he said.
Last weekend the town council in Coevorden, on the German border in Drenthe, abolished plans to accommodate 14 teenage girl refugees in a residential neighbourhood after it became the focus of violent protests.
A car was torched, windows in the building were smashed and a crowd set fire to a trailer stacked with wood. Mayor Renze Bergsma said: “We cannot guarantee the girls’ safety. They deserve a safe home and a secure future and we cannot offer them that.”
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