Date: Tue, 07 May 2002 14:48:42 +1000 From: saeed urrehman <think-AT-riseup.net> Subject: dutch assassination Assassination rocks The Netherlands AFP - Dutch far-right leader Pim Fortuyn has been shot dead, nine days before national elections in which his anti-immigrant party was poised to make a strong showing. A lone gunman walked up to the flamboyant and openly gay Fortuyn, 54, and pumped a hail of bullets into his neck, head and chest in broad daylight, witnesses said. They said a man in a baseball cap had opened fire as Fortuyn was about to get into a chauffeur-driven limousine in the central city of Hilversum after appearing on a radio show. "Pim Fortuyn is no longer with us, this is a deeply tragic moment," said a clearly emotional Prime Minister Wim Kok. "This is not just an assassination attempt on Pim Fortuyn but also on Dutch democracy," he said. Police said a 33-year-old white Dutch male had been arrested, but there was no word on his identity or the motivation for the killing. Fortuyn sent shock waves through the Dutch political scene after he and his followers won more than a third of the council seats in the number-two city, Rotterdam, in March. His fiery calls to end immigration, and his attacks on Islam in a country where Muslims account for nearly one million of the 16-million population, struck a chord with voters. His self-styled Pim Fortuyn's List party had been expected to make another strong showing in the May 15 parliamentary election, seen as the next test of the far-right in Europe after the shock strength of France's National Front leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. Kok said he would talk to members of Fortuyn's party on Tuesday before taking any decision on whether to postpone the vote, after holding an emergency cabinet meeting. Hundreds of angry demonstrators, some wearing swastikas, took to the streets outside the Dutch parliament and threw bottles and stones at riot police who were called in to disperse them. Some broke shop windows in the normally sleepy Dutch capital as protesters cried "The media did it!" and "The country is sick." A handful of extremists shouted "Pim der Fuhrer," comparing him to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. At Fortuyn's lavish Rotterdam home, hundreds of people gathered to lay flowers and draped Dutch flags over the gates. The head of the governing socialist PVDA party, Ad Melkert, said: "The Netherlands has lost its innocence. The campaign will not continue." British Prime Minister Tony Blair said in a statement: "No matter what feelings political figures arouse, the ballot box is the place to express them." In neighbouring Belgium the leader of the extreme-right Vlaams Blok party, Frank Vanhecke, said he was "shocked but not surprised" by the attack. "Throughout Europe and particularly in The Netherlands and Flanders, we have faced a climate of hate and even calls for violence against politicians who question political correctness, just like Mr Fortuyn had done," he said. --- from list postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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