An update on this story. “Verdonk takes heat for naturalisation ruling,” from Expatica, with thanks to Anna:
AMSTERDAM “” The way Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk has decided her Liberal party colleague Ayaan Hirsi Ali was never a Dutch citizen has drawn the ire of several political allies.
Bibi de Vries, an MP for the Dutch Liberal Party (VVD), furiously laid into Verdonk before the parliamentary party’s weekly meeting on Tuesday.
“I am fuming with Rita Verdonk that she has hunted Hirsi Ali like wild game. And if anything happens to Hirsi Ali, there will be people within the VVD who have blood on their hands,” De Vries said.
Senior party officials rushed to defend Verdonk, pointing out she was only following the letter of the law. Verdonk announced on Monday evening that Hirsi Ali, who was born in Somalia, is not a Dutch citizen. Her naturalisation in 1997 was based on false information she gave to get her asylum in 1992.
The VVD is one of the three parties in the centre-right coalition government. It has consistently supported Verdonk’s approach of expelling asylum seekers for giving false information.
Yes, but why now? Hirsi Ali has acknowledged all this for years. One would think also that the death threats she has received for telling the truth could and would become the occasion for granting her asylum and citizenship on a firmer basis. That this is not under consideration unmasks Verdonk and her allies as craven dhimmis bent only on the destruction of a Cassandra who has told them too many unpleasant truths.
This has not [prevented] some members of the party [from] taking a different view in Hirsi Ali’s case. Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, an MEP for the Dutch Liberal Party (VVD), described Verdonk’s actions as “disgusting”.
Yes, that’s what it is. Disgusting.