Nieuws van de afdeling

11 January 2011

'Stop the war, support Afghanistan'

SP Members of Parliament Harry van Bommel and Farshad Bashir today joined party colleagues and members of the Labour Party, the Green Left and the local peace movement on a demonstration in The Hague against a renewed Dutch mission to Afghanistan. The demonstration took place in front of the Café Dudok, just before a celebration of the Afghan New Year to be held that same evening. The SP is opposed to the proposed new military mission to Afghanistan on the grounds that the operation will take place during what, Van Bommel says ‘can only be described as war conditions’.

11 January 2011

Court of Auditors revelations: De Jong demands explanation from Commission

SP Euro-MP Dennis de Jong has asked the European Commission for its response to revelations from former member of the EU Court of Auditors Maarten Engwirda regarding abuses. The Dutchman has revealed that the Commission put the Court under pressure to go easy on fraud and that members of the Court from the countries where alleged abuses took place attempted a cover up. ‘I want the Commission to explain just what measures it proposes to take to guarantee the integrity of members of the Court of Auditors,’ says De Jong, adding that he also wanted ‘a debate on this with the European Parliament. Any idea the Commission has of going easy on monitoring by the Court must be dropped.’

9 January 2011

Van Bommel wants Dutch presence at mass trial of Turkish Kurds

SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel is urging Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal to send observers to next week’s mass trial in the Turkish Kurd town of Diyarbakir. On Thursday 13th January hundreds of democratically elected Turkish Kurd politicians and political activists will stand trial on charges of membership of a terrorist organisation despite the fact that the political party involved, the DTP, is not banned. Van Bommel describes what is happening as a ‘political trial that does not belong in a country that wants to join the European Union. The Netherlands must condemn this.’

7 January 2011

Van Bommel: ‘New Afghanistan mission is military in nature’

The SP is strongly against the proposed new military mission in Afghanistan on the grounds that the context in which it will take place is one of war. ‘There’s no other way to describe these conditions,’ points out SP Member of Parliament and Foreign Affairs spokesman Harry van Bommel.

3 January 2011

Foreign minister must put pressure on Egypt

SP Member of Parliament Harry van Bommel has asked Foreign Minister Uri Rosenthal for his comments on the attitude taken by the Egyptian government to minority groups. Van Bommel’s request follows the horrific New Year’s Day attacks on Coptic Christians in Alexandria, in which twenty-one people lost their lives. ‘This attack is no exception,’ Van Bommel explains. ‘Egypt should do a much better job of protecting minorities. I want the Foreign Minister and his European colleagues to bring pressure to bear on Egypt to respect human rights.'

24 December 2010

‘Don’t let Sicko be our future’

Lewi Vogelpoel (right) gives a copy of 'Sicko' to Renske Leijten

International