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Council of Europe joins chorus denouncing anti-immigrant website

The Council of Europe has become the latest organisation to call on the Dutch government to distance itself from Geert Wilders’s much-criticised ‘shop-a-migrant’ website.

Prime Minister Mark Rutte has resisted several calls to denounce the site, which invites Dutch citizens to complain about Eastern European migrants who cause trouble or ‘steal’ their jobs.

Thorbjorn Jagland, secretary-general of the Council of Europe, said the site was 'generally viewed as xenophobic' in a pointed letter to Dutch foreign minister Uri Rosenthal.

He wrote: 'I am concerned because the site is an initiative by a political party which is linked to the governing coalition.'

Ambassadors from several European countries have denounced the PVV’s initiative, while Dutch businesses in Poland say the backlash has damaged trade and community relations.

The Council of Europe is the continent’s most prominent voice on human rights, founded in 1949 and with a membership drawn from 47 countries. However, it has no power to investigate member states’ actions or impose sanctions.

The European People’s Party, the main right-of-centre group in the European Parliament, has called for Rutte to defend the “reckless” website when they debate the issue next month.

In typically robust language, Wilders has instructed European politicians who criticised the scheme to “mind their own business”.

Rutte defended his passive stance on the issue in Parliament last week, insisting he would not react to “every piece of red meat that Wilders chucks into the arena”.

Source: NRC: Raad van Europa wil dat Rutte afstand neemt van PVV meldpunt

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Read previous story: Rutte called to Strasbourg over Wilders's anti-migrant website