Posted on 05/07/2002 10:15:21 AM PDT by NativeNewYorker
AMSTERDAM, May 7 (Reuters) - The suspected killer of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn is a vegan animal rights activist who declares on the Internet that "protecting animals is civilising people", a source close to Fortuyn's party said on Tuesday.
A 32-year-old man from the staunchly religious central Dutch town of Harderwijk is being held for Monday's shooting, and justice officials said bullets and environmentalist material were found during a search of his home.
The man, in custody but not identified by police, says on the Internet he is a member of a small, little-known animal welfare group fighting to stop the expansion of factory farming in a country which boasts a big intensive agriculture industry.
"Many animal protectors act from the assumption that 'nature is good', but every dark side of humans can also be found in nature," the suspected gunman writes on the Web.
"Protecting animals is civilising people, as they say."
He says his actions -- using legal procedures to fight permits for factory farms and fur farms -- stem from a belief that what happens to animals in factory farming is wrong, adding: "For the rest, I just act rationally, I don't have to be an animal friend to protect animals."
Fortuyn, who was openly gay and travelled by chauffeur-driven Daimler with two small lapdogs, was well known for his anti-immigration stance but had a less than fully rounded policy on agriculture.
"We don't have a very developed policy on animal rights. We were busy developing it," Joost Eerdmans, a candidate for Fortuyn's party in the May 15 general election, told Reuters.
FORTUYN "LOVED ANIMALS"
"(Fortuyn) had two dogs. They were his life since he didn't have a partner. He loved animals. There is no mistake about that," said Eerdmans.
Eerdmans said Fortuyn wanted to restructure the Dutch department of agriculture, making it more animal-friendly to help limit diseases such as BSE. He wanted to make farming less intensive.
Fortuyn had no 24-hour bodyguard -- he was unprotected when the gunman fired on him on Monday as he left a radio station after giving an interview -- but he made use of private security guards at his home and at some public events, colleagues said.
Fortuyn beefed up his security after a "pie" of faeces and vomit was hurled at him in March at a book presentation. Police said a group calling itself "The Bakery Brigade" claimed responsibility for that but nobody was arrested or charged.
Chief public prosecutor Theo Hofstee said on Tuesday a search of the suspect's home found "he was in possession of material that indicates involvement in environmental activism", though he said he made no link between that and the murder.
Hofstee told reporters the unnamed suspect was calm and "in possession of his senses" when he was arrested shortly after the killing around 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Monday.
The suspect made no statement, meaning officials had no clue as to possible motive, Hofstee said.
Though green issues were not high on Fortuyn's taboo-breaking agenda, the outspoken would-be premier lashed out late last year at Dutch environmental policy and activism.
"The whole environmental policy in the Netherlands has no substance any more. And I'm sick to death of your environmental movement," Fortuyn was quoted as telling established Dutch green organisation "Milieu Defensie" ("Environmental Defence").
Interesting how little play this is getting, in the context of the hysterical campaign to marginalize Le Pen just a few days ago. Who are the Nazis now?
I suspect so (I'm assuming that "groen," the Dutch word for "green," is also used for environmentalists in Holland.)
Save the Whales, Kill the Conservatives!
If he loves animals, he should be fed to the pigs.
Maybe you could get Bricktop from the movie Snatch to do the honors. He sounded very efficient at turning people into pig feed.
Ordinary human beings in their position would step back & consider how they may have contributed to this tragedy. But not the reptiles on the Left - they'll be the last to know that they've become exactly what they claim to abhore.
Ordinary human beings in their position would step back & consider how they may have contributed to this tragedy. But not the reptiles on the Left - they'll be the last to know that they've become exactly what they claim to abhore.
Actually, they always were what they claimed to abhore. It was left-wing tactics and communist genocides which created fascism in the first place, as a kind of allergic reaction to the culture destroying agenda of the left. Having created their nemesis, leftists then spent the rest of the 20th century (and now the 21st century) blaming everyone but themselves.
"And I'm sick to death of your environmental movement," Fortuyn was quoted as telling established Dutch green organisation "Milieu Defensie" ("Environmental Defence").This quote belongs in a collection of famous last words ...
Everything else - the causes they claim, laws, truth, human lives - are subserviant to that imperative.
Goody gum-drops.
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