Free Republic

The Protestant Church in the Netherlands (PKN) on Monday issued a declaration condemning anti-Jewish statements made by the German church reformer Martin Luther five centuries ago. In a text published at a seminar in Utrecht on Monday, the PKN declares that Luther's anti-Jewish statements were "unacceptable" and part of the "dark pages" of Lutheran church history. Rabbi Raphael Evers of the Dutch Jewish umbrella organization NIK welcomed the declaration, saying: "I sometimes get the question whether the excuses now are still necessary, given the declaration by the Lutheran World Federation back in 1983. However, I fear that warning against anti-Semitism...

LONDON (AP) — The Netherlands added itself Friday to a list of countries pressuring organizers of the Eurovision Song Contest to drop Israel from the contest because of its war in the Gaza Strip. Dutch broadcaster AVROTROS, one of dozens of public broadcasters that collectively fund and broadcast the contest, said it would not take part in next year’s competition in Vienna if Israel participates “given the ongoing and severe human suffering in Gaza.” “The broadcaster also expresses deep concern about the serious erosion of press freedom: the deliberate exclusion of independent international reporting and the many casualties among journalists,”...

85 percent of women in Amsterdam avoid specific places in the city because they feel unsafe, AT5 reported after surveying over 2,100 Amsterdam residents. Men included, around 70 percent of Amsterdammers have areas they consider dangerous. On average, Amsterdammers give how safe they feel in the city at night a 6 out of 10. But that comes with the warning to avoid certain places in the dark. City parks were most often mentioned, specifically Vondelpark, Sarphatipark, and Oosterpark. “You have less of an overview there, and there are fewer people around,” one respondent said about going to a park at...

The Van Gogh Museum, the beloved Amsterdam home to many masterpieces by one of the 19th century’s most famous painters, said it could be forced to close if the Dutch government doesn’t appropriate more money to a much-needed renovation. The museum threatened closure on Wednesday via press release, an unusual measure that the institution said was necessary because the government is “not keeping the promise” it inked with the Vincent van Gogh Foundation in 1962. The foundation owns most of the artworks on view at the museum, including iconic paintings such as The Potato Eaters (1885). Signed after the artist’s...

The U.S. Coast Guard achieved a milestone with the offload of a record 76,140 pounds of illicit narcotics, valued at $473 million, at Port Everglades on Monday. This marks the largest quantity of drugs offloaded in Coast Guard history. Coast Guard Cutter Hamilton’s crew offloaded approximately 61,740 pounds of cocaine and 14,400 pounds of marijuana, preventing an estimated 23 million potential lethal doses from reaching the United States.

The representatives for Netherlands and Egypt at the embassy. The Netherlands has returned stolen artifacts to Egypt in a show of solidarity. Photo Credit: Egyptian embassy of the Netherlands IN a move reflecting international solidarity, the Netherlands has handed over a collection of Egyptian artifacts dating back to ancient Egyptian civilisation. The Egyptian Embassy in The Hague received the artifacts from the Dutch National Museum of Antiquities following confirmation that the archaeological artifacts had been obtained illegally. The artifacts, which included a myriad of pottery items, are representative of the artistic and artisanal diversity of ancient Egyptian craftsmen. The move,...

...with the elections less than 90 days away, a surprising development has emerged in the opinion surveys: Suddenly, the small center-right Christian Democratic Appeal, or CDA, is surging,...

The Netherlands’ counter-terrorism authority has included Israel in its latest report as one of the state actors assessed to pose a threat to the country’s security. The country is thus placed alongside Iran, North Korea and Turkey, among others. The Netherlands’ National Coordinator for Counterterrorism and Security (NCTV) published on July 17, 2025, its annual report “Assessment of threats from state actors 2025” (Beoordeling Dreigingen door Staatactoren 2025), where Israel is listed for the first time as a security-threatening actor. Israel’s placement on the list is linked to assessments that the country uses informal methods to influence public opinion and...

President Donald Trump has told Canada that if it recognizes Palestine as a state, it’s jeopardizing a trade pact with the U.S. The threat is more than leverage for talks. It’s a reminder that the West is giving up on civilization and needs to be rousted from its slumber. “Canada has just announced that it is backing statehood for Palestine,” Trump wrote Thursday on Truth Social. “That will make it very hard for us to make a trade deal with them.” Canada is not the only Western nation that feels the need to recognize the terrorist-controlled Gaza Strip, which, with...

Dutch lawyer Arno van Kessel was leading a civil lawsuit against Bill Gates, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, and Klaus Schwab over alleged COVID vaccine-related crimes, he was recently arrested by Dutch special forces in a late-night raid and jailed without formal charges.

There was a kind of hilarious article last week that I had up in our headlines section. I forget what sort of snarky comment I'd added to the headline for it, but what it boiled down to was pissy progressives packing up and moving to the Netherlands because TRUMP.Number Of 'Trumpugees' Leaving America Continues to RiseA week ahead of a crucial Supreme Court decision which delivered yet another blow to the United States' transgender community on Monday, Grover Wehman-Brown was in the midst of packing ahead of their big move to Europe.Since President Donald Trump's first electoral victory in 2016,...

Thousands of businesses and households are waiting to connect to the Dutch grid, forcing network operators to ration power in an early indicator of what other European countries are likely to suffer as the speed of electrification increases. . . . The Netherlands is among the countries in Europe to have moved fastest to electrify critical parts of the economy after it in 2023 ended production at its giant onshore gasfield, Groningen.

The Dutch PEGIDA leader Edwin Wagensveld has been featured in this space a number of times (most recently here). He is renowned for his Islamophobic acts, the most controversial of which is the burning of a Koran. In the following video, which was recorded on the street near the recent NATO conference in The Hague, Mr. Wagensveld tries a different tactic: he repeatedly drops a Koran on the ground and steps on it. To be struck or touched with a shoe is considered the vilest of insults in Islam, so putting one’s foot on a Koran is doubly blasphemous. In...

The Netherlands is rationing electricity as its overloaded power grid buckles under the pressure of rapid electrification and ambitious climate goals. More than 11,900 businesses are stuck in a queue for access to the network, alongside public buildings including hospitals, schools and fire stations. Thousands of new homes are also waiting to be connected, with some areas warned they may have to wait until the 2030s. The crisis has emerged as the country scrambles to cut carbon emissions. And now experts are warning that Britain, as well as Belgium and Germany, are all 'in trouble.' The countries should 'definitely' see...

The trial of two Iranians and six others, who tried to smuggle 2.2 tons of cocaine to the island, exposed networks spanning the Middle East and Venezuela. JNS Staff. July 9, 2025 / JNS) An Irish court on July 4 sentenced two Iranian nationals in connection with a transnational drug trafficking operation involving more than 2.2 tons of cocaine, as authorities investigate suspected links to Hezbollah and the Iranian regime, Irish media reported. The men—Soheil Jelveh, 51, a former captain of the cargo vessel MV Matthew, and Saied Hassani, 39, a senior officer with significant maritime experience—received sentences of 17.5...

According to the portal, the new US administration does not consider Europe to be a partner, but as a "political battleground"BRUSSELS, July 8. /TASS/. The US is taking steps to carry out a "regime change" in the EU, trying to rig elections to put far-right forces in power to "turn Europe and allies like Canada and Mexico into US vassals," said Caroline de Gruyter in a column she contributed to the Brussels portal EUobserver. EUobserver previously always expressed the interests of the globalist European elite, which prevails among the supranational officials of the EU and NATO, as well as their...

A majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of the Dutch parliament, adopted two asylum laws around midnight. The laws, drafted by former PVV Minister Marjolein Faber, are intended to implement “the strictest asylum policy ever” in the Netherlands. 95 parliamentarians voted in favor of the Two Status System Act and 55 against. The Asylum Emergency Measures Act got 94 votes for and 56 against, NOS reports. It is uncertain whether these laws will also make it through the Eerste Kamer, the Dutch Senate. The CDA, an important swing vote in the Senate where the caretaker Cabinet has no...

Less than an hour from the capital of the European Union, gangs fight gun battles in the streets or bomb each other’s outposts. Crime reporters, police and prosecutors are bought off or killed. Torture cells are set up in shipping containers and bodies can be cleanly disposed of, but when the gangs really want to send a message they set up a public execution or fire off a rocket. That’s the way things are done, not in Bogota or Beirut, but in Antwerp. Europe’s initial Islamic migration followed port cities. Among those leading port cities were Rotterdam and Antwerp which...

A Ukrainian drone attack on an urban district of Moscow...one man wounded... United Parcel Service offering buyouts to its full-time drivers... In a late night vote the Dutch House...approving tighter immigration laws... 200 US Marines deploying to Florida to support US Immigration and Customs Enforcement... Explosions throughout Kiev early Friday morning during a major Russian attack... The US Supreme Court voiding a federal district judge's injunction against deportation flights... China critical of the new US-Vietnam trade deal saying it hurts China... Yair Netanyahu, son of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, testifying to a special police... Russia formally recognizing Taliban rule...

Workers recovered a remarkable medieval sword during dredging of the Korte Linschoten River near Montfoort. According to a La Brújula Verde report, the three-foot-long double-edged blade dates to between a.d. 1050 and 1150. This was a time when the bishop of Utrecht held power in the region, but the counts of Holland and Flanders were growing increasingly more influential. Besides its exceptionally well-preserved condition, the weapon is noteworthy because of a pair of intricate designs etched into its surface. One side features a "sun wheel," a circular design divided by a cross that was a sacred symbol in medieval Europe...