Extremism in the Netherlands is faint but dangerous

Utrecht, the fourth largest city in the Netherlands, witnessed a random shooting near the train station in the center of the city on the morning of March 18, which killed three people and wounded nine others. Counterterrorism police announced that the evidence indicates it was a terrorist attack, while Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, the country’s National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism, said efforts are focused on arresting the fugitive.

Police published the image of the suspect, 37-year-old Turkish-born Gokmen Tanis. They also announced that the security risk level had been temporarily raised to the highest level, security measures were tightened around the country's main buildings and airports, trains were prevented from entering the central station in Utrecht, and all mosques in the city were closed.

This terrorist attack came just days after a right-wing extremist attacked two mosques in New Zealand, killing 50 people, including children. In September 2018, the Netherlands witnessed a stabbing carried out by a 19-year-old Afghan man, in which two US tourists were injured.

An ISIS-inspired terrorist drove a bus into a music festival in southern Holland in June 2018, killing one person and injuring three others. A month earlier, a young man of Arab origin stabbed three people in The Hague during the Dutch Liberation Day celebrations.

The first terrorist attack by a radical Islamist in the Netherlands took place in 2004, when Moroccan-born Mohammed Bouyeri fired eight shots at film director Theo van Gogh, the grandson of painter Vincent van Gogh. Bouyeri is serving a life sentence.

Expanding extremism

Dutch intelligence has estimated that about 160 people had left the country and traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS, most notably a former Dutch Royal Army officer, Israfil Yilmaz, who was killed in an airstrike on Raqqa in late 2016.

This increase in extremist activity and the implementation of a number of "lone wolf" terrorist operations was not the result of the moment, but was supported for a long time by ISIS and al-Qaeda.

According to a report issued last year by the National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism on the activity of militant groups in the Netherlands, a change in terrorist behavior was observed following ISIS’s losses in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria in October 2017, where they began focusing on propagating their extremist ideas online to inspire more supporters.

Hidden presence

When observers talk about the activity of right-wing extremist currents in Europe, the debate usually focuses on specific countries. Their strong presence in Germany has allowed them to become the third largest party in parliament. In Italy, the far right governs by a coalition consisting of the Lega Nord party, led by Deputy Prime Minister and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini, and the Five Star Movement.

However, right-wing movements are also on the rise in the Netherlands. An indication of this was the call by MP Geert Wilders, the leader of the far-right Party for Freedom, to organize a cartoon contest depicting the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) in June 2018. A right-wing extremist group also roasted pork in front of a mosque in Rotterdam during Ramadan.

In December 2015, a group of right-wing youth calling themselves Identitair Verzet occupied the Fath mosque in Dordrecht, southwestern Holland, and they raised flags and banners hostile to Islam and Muslims.

The Party for Freedom Party, led by Wilders, is the second largest party in the Netherlands and won 19 seats in the 2017 election, which was an increase of four seats since 2012. The party achieved this progress by using electoral propaganda focused on incitement against Muslims in the country.

In January 2018, Wilders led a demonstration of hundreds of right-wing demonstrators at a central train station in Rotterdam to protest what they described as discrimination against ordinary Dutch citizens in favor of immigrants and Muslims. Speaking through a loudspeaker, Wilders said that "the Netherlands is not an Islamic state."

Government efforts

The Dutch authorities have been intensifying their efforts to prevent terrorist attacks in the country. They follow the movements of both radical Islamists and right-wing extremists in the country, and when there is evidence of a terrorist operation being prepared, the police arrest those involved and refer them to trial.

Police arrested 28 people, of whom 18 were convicted in terrorism-related cases in 2017. Among them were the brothers of a Dutch national who had traveled to Syria to join ISIS; they were sentenced to two years imprisonment for sending €17,000 to their brother through a mediator in Turkey.

The Netherlands held its provincial elections on March 20, in which voters elected States-Provincial members. These elections are particularly important as they give an indication of the composition of the parliament, for which elections are due to be held on May 27. Observers are watching to see how the rise in the country's militant movements will affect the composition of the new parliament.