Free Republic

Reform UK’s newest MP called for the burqa to be banned in Britain during Prime Minister's Questions. Sarah Pochin, the MP for Runcorn and Helsby, used her first question at the weekly Commons session to ask Sir Keir Starmer if he would follow other European countries that have made it illegal for people to cover their faces in public places. She said: “Given the Prime Minister’s desire to strengthen strategic alignment with our European neighbours, will he, in the interests of public safety, follow the lead of France, Denmark, Belgium and others and ban the burqa?” Her question prompted an...

At the beginning of the month, the hard-fought-for Dutch coalition that Geert Wilders had won the right to be part of - and forfeited his right to be prime minister of the country for - had iced out the conservative leader one too many times over his party's hard-line immigration stance.After all, campaigning on border controls and deportations was what had gotten them elected. Wilders was determined to see reforms enacted, be damned what the EU diktats were. He wanted to enact what the Dutch people had voted his party in to do.As he watched his 'partners' effectively enact their...

A group of Dutch citizens staged an unauthorized border control operation this weekend between Ter Apel and the German village of Rütenbrock, citing frustration with what they describe as uncontrolled illegal immigration.Wearing reflective clothing and wielding torches, the group of around 12 men began stopping vehicles on Saturday evening along the N366, a key route between Germany and the Netherlands.The vigilantes, who pulled cars over and even inspected trunks, say they took action because authorities are failing to secure the border and stem the flow of asylum seekers entering the country. “Nothing is happening. Then we’ll do it ourselves,” said...

France didn’t plan to blow the whistle on the Muslim Brotherhood’s attempt to take over Europe. But that’s exactly what it did a couple of weeks ago, when a classified report from the Ministry of the Interior leaked to the newspaper Le Figaro. The 73-page document, marked confidentiel-défense, was meant for top officials only. Based on intelligence files, field investigations, and dozens of interviews, it lays out a stark diagnosis: The Muslim Brotherhood has built an extensive ideological infrastructure in France—not through violence, but through schools, charities, mosques, and soft power. It states: “The Brotherhood’s strategy is to install a...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch opposition parties called Wednesday for fresh elections as soon as possible, a day after anti-Islam lawmaker Geert Wilders sparked the collapse of the country’s four-party coalition government.Prime Minister Dick Schoof’s 11-month-old administration fell apart when Wilders withdrew his Party for Freedom ministers. Schoof and the ministers of three remaining parties remain in power as a caretaker Cabinet.The government, with limited powers, now has to lead the country for months before new elections and during what could — again — be protracted talks to cobble together a new coalition in the fragmented Dutch political landscape...

The Dutch government collapsed on Tuesday after the Party for Freedom led by Geert Wilders pulled out of the coalition over the government’s asylum policy. Wilders had been adamant leading up to the collapse that without strict restrictions on immigration, his party would leave the coalition government. Wilders made good on those threats Tuesday. “We had no choice. I promised the voters the strictest asylum policy ever, but that was not granted to you,” said Wilders, according to The Wall Street Journal. The Netherlands’ prime minister, Dick Schoof, said Tuesday following the Party for Freedom’s exit that he would hand...

Prompted by an international tribunal's decision last year ordering new hearings for 51 Mexicans on death rows in the United States, the State Department said yesterday that the United States had withdrawn from the protocol that gave the tribunal jurisdiction to hear such disputes. The withdrawal followed a Feb. 28 memorandum from President Bush to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales directing state courts to abide by the decision of the tribunal, the International Court of Justice in The Hague. The decision required American courts to grant "review and reconsideration" to claims that the inmates' cases had been hurt by the...

The democratic will of the Hungarian people to clamp down on the proliferation of LGBTQ+ ideology should be punished by the European Commission, a group of 16 EU countries demanded on Wednesday. In response to recent legislation passed by Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s conservative government to ban Pride parades in Hungary, over half of fellow European Union member states signed an open letter demanding that Budapest reverse course or face punishment from Brussels. The “declaration” was signed by the countries of Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Sweden. […]...

A painting by American artist Mark Rothko, valued at up to €50 million, has been damaged by a child at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam. A painting by Mark Rothko has been damaged by a child during an “unguarded moment,” according to a Dutch museum. The abstract painting from 1960, “Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8”, was “scratched” by a child visiting the Rotterdam gallery Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen where it was on display. The museum shared a statement: “The painting Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 by Mark Rothko has sustained superficial damage after a child touched...

A kid in The Netherlands could be in time out for a while. The unnamed child is responsible for damaging a 1960 Mark Rothko painting reportedly worth €50 (about $56 million) inside the Boijmans Van Beuningen museum in Rotterdam. “The painting Grey, Orange on Maroon, No. 8 by Mark Rothko has sustained superficial damage after a child touched the painting when it was on display," the museum shared in a statement to PEOPLE. "As a result, small scratches are visible in the unvarnished paint layer in the lower part of the painting." The museum added, Conservation expertise has been sought...

Over a year ago, the Netherlands reported numerous sperm mega-donors within the country, leading to fears of accidental incest. The number of these mega-donors seems to keep growing, with the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology (NVOG) now admitting at least 85 men have fathered 25 or more children. The most infamous Dutch sperm mega-donor is Jonathan Meijer, who is believed to have over 1,000 children and was the subject of a Netflix documentary last year. Meijer had been ordered to stop donating sperm, though he appeared not to have complied, just moving his sperm donation business outside of the...

A Dutch municipality has admitted it likely threw away dozens of artworks by mistake, including a rare Andy Warhol print of Queen Beatrix, during town hall renovations last year. The incident occurred in Uden, which merged with Landerd in 2022 to form the new Maashorst municipality. Local officials said 46 artworks were placed in storage during the building work, but were probably discarded with construction waste. In a statement released Thursday, the municipality said, “It’s most likely that the artworks were accidentally taken away with the trash.” One of the missing items, a Warhol silkscreen from the 1980s, was estimated...

Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson 🚨BREAKING: President Trump announces MASSIVE tariffs are coming VERY shortly on pharmaceuticals. THIS is what I voted for: "We're gonna tariff our pharmaceuticals ... we're going to be announcing very shortly a major tariff on pharmaceuticals." From Aaron Rupar 8:00 PM · Apr 8, 2025

What...well. Hold that thought. We know exactly what's going on in Europe, and lately it's been especially spicey in Amsterdam, capital city of the Netherlands. They have a car problem. Europeans cars drive into crowds, and now they have cars that try to blow themselves up in the middle of public squares packed with people going about their day. You can see the small explosion in the little red Fiat-looking car in the bottom right of the screen, just to the left of the monument. Looks like a failed bomb attack on #damsquare in #amsterdam? But see for yourself!#carbomb #fire...

Video of the moment the failed car bomb exploded at the main square in Amsterdam, Netherlands.A car is on fire after a small explosion. The police believe it’s a deliberate attack. It’s the same location where 5 people were stabbed a few days ago.

Statistics recently released in the Netherlands show that euthanasia rates in the country were 10% higher in 2024 over the previous year, including a shocking 60% rise in deaths for psychiatric reasons. The regional euthanasia review committee (RTE) released the 2024 figures, which show that there were 9,958 euthanasia deaths in 2024, up from 9,068 in 2023. Of those people, 219 died for psychiatric reasons, up from 138 in 2023. It was this number — a 60% increase — that spurred the RTE to urge caution. “Are we still doing this right?” questioned Jeroen Recourt, RTE’s president. “I welcome social...

The European Parliament has, once again, found itself at the heart of a corruption scandal, this time involving the Chinese tech giant Huawei. Police raids have been carried out across Belgium and Portugal amid suspicions of bribery, forgery, money laundering, and organized criminal activity. The European Parliament’s latest corruption scandal unfolds even as the previous one—the so-called ‘Qatargate’ affair—remains under investigation and litigation, further deepening preexisting concerns about foreign influence in EU institutions. The Qatargate scandal, which surfaced more than two years ago, involves allegations that Members of the European Parliament (MEPs), lobbyists, and their families accepted substantial sums of...

The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a website. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year,...

March 11 was a day of reckoning. Fresh off a plane at the Manila international airport, former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was flanked and detained under an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for alleged crimes against humanity.

Christmas 2009, 23 year old Omar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up a plane heading from the Netherlands to Detroit Michigan. He was not successful. Philip Haney was a founding member of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2002, serving as a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) officer. Fluent in Arabic and knowledgeable about Islamic culture, he played a significant role in identifying potential terrorist threats. He left DHS after 15 years and became a whistleblower. In an article he wrote for The Hill, he stated that the Obama administration had forced him to remove raw intelligence data...