SINT MAARTEN/THE NETHERLANDS – There is majority support in parliament for legislation which would allow day-care centres to ban children who have not been vaccinated, broadcaster RTL said on Tuesday.

Some creches have already acted to ban children who have not been vaccinated against childhood diseases, but it is not clear if this is currently legally possible. Now coalition partner D66 is planning to bring in its own draft legislation which would allow day-care groups to bring in a ban.

‘This means parents would know where they can safely take their children,’ D66 parliamentarian Rens Raemakers said. MPs from the ruling VVD and CDA also support the D66 plan, alongside the GroenLinks and PvdA opposition parties.

At the moment 90% of Dutch children are vaccinated against potentially serious illnesses such as measles, polio and whooping cough. This is below the level of 95% the World Health Organisation considers safe.

A survey by television show EenVandaag earlier this year found 70% of the Dutch think childhood vaccinations should be made compulsory but that 36% of young parents don’t trust information about them provided by the public health institute RIVM.

In addition, 82% of the 32,000 people polled think day-care centres should be able to ban children who are not vaccinated and 55% would support cutting the child benefits of anti-vaxxers.

(DutchNews)

SINT MAARTEN/THE NETHERLANDS – Police in Drenthe are trying to unravel the mystery of a group of adults, mainly in their teens or 20s, who were living in an isolated farmhouse for nine years, apparently waiting for ‘the end of time’.

Roger de Groot, mayor of the village of Ruinerwold, told a news conference on Tuesday afternoon that the 58-year-old man who had been arrested was not the father of the young adults as earlier reported but did rent the farmhouse from its owner.

De Groot declined to comment on reports that the police had been called to the farmhouse on earlier occasions. They were alerted this weekend by the barman of a local cafe, who was concerned about the dishevelled state of a young man who came in and said he needed help.

‘The police assessed the situation and found a number of rooms with makeshift furnishings where the family lived a withdrawn existence. That is where the six were found,’ De Groot said.

It is still unclear whether there were five or six children and if their actual father was with them.

Austrian

The children had no contact with the outside world and lived completely self-sufficiently with their own vegetable garden and a goat. No neighbours reported knowing the family and one neighbour told RTV Drenthe he thought the man, who had boarded up all the farm windows, lived there alone.

Several of the young adults had not been registered with the authorities, the mayor said. Locals said they saw the man driving around in an old car but had not seen anyone else.

One neighbour told the Telegraaf he thought the man was Austrian and that he spoke German. ‘He was very sharp,’ the neighbour said. ‘You only had to come close to the property and he would send you away.

He used binoculars to keep an eye on everything.’ The village of Ruinerwold lies some six kilometres from Meppel and has a population of just under 4,000 people.

(DutchNews)

SINT MAARTEN/THE NETHERLANDS – The man who stabbed two American tourists at Amsterdam’s central station in vengeance for Geert Wilders’ cartoon competition has been jailed for 26 years and eight months by judges in the Dutch capital.

Jaweed S was found guilty of two counts of attempted murder with a terrorist motive and three charges of threatening police officers. He travelled from Germany to the Netherlands with the aim of killing as many people as possible, the court said.

‘There is a real risk he will re-offend and it is the duty of the court to protect society’, making the maximum permitted sentence the only appropriate punishment, the court said.

S took the train from his home in Germany to Amsterdam on August 31 last year. He attacked two people standing by an information desk before he was overpowered by police.

The 20-year-old Afghan refugee, who left his homeland when he was 16, refused to utter Wilders’s name in court, but had made it clear that the Muhammed cartoon contest was the motive for his visit.

The contest was called off before the attack took place.

Lost boy

The wife of one of his victims said in court during the hearings earlier this year that she hoped S, whom she described as a ‘lost boy’, would become a better person. ‘You do not represent refugees,’ she said.

‘We were refugees once and were given an opportunity in a fantastic country.’ According to broadcaster NOS, the woman and the other victim originally came from Eritrea.

Jaweed S was also ordered to pay one of his victims, who is now in a wheelchair, €2.6m in compensation. The other victim should get €38,000, the court said. The court said that if S is unable to pay compensation he will be sentenced up to a further year in jail, which will not take away the requirement to pay.

The victims may also be able to claim up to €35,000 from a special fund set up for the victims of crime.

(DutchNews)

SINT MAARTEN/THE NETHERLANDS – Four provinces have overturned their regulations to curb nitrogen-based pollution after hundreds of farmers picketed assembly houses on their tractors.

The co-ordinated protests at noon on Monday prompted the provincial governments of Drenthe, Overijssel and Gelderland to scrap tighter rules introduced following a Council of State ruling in May.

Friesland decided on Friday to withdraw its regulations following a similar protest. Convoys of tractors converged on eight provincial assemblies on Monday.

The farmers called on regional governments not to introduce new rules until the state has decided how to implement the judgment, which said current regulations to reduce pollution by nitrous oxide and ammonia breached European law.

In Drenthe, Henk Jumelet, the provincial deputy responsible for agriculture, said the authority was going ‘back to the drawing board’ and would withdraw its current regulations, after initially saying they would be suspended.

Around 1,000 farmers gathered outside the assembly house in Assen to hear the announcement.

There were similar scenes in Overijssel’s capital, Zwolle, where agriculture deputy Gert Harm ter Borschler emerged from a brief meeting with farmers’ representatives to address a crowd of several hundred from a wooden crate held aloft by a tractor.

Having initially refused to change the rules and offering a meeting in the next 24 hours, Harm ter Borschler changed course to loud applause from the assembled farmers.

Gelderland also announced it would draw up new regulations after the assembly returns from its autumn holiday next week.

Tension in Groningen

In Groningen police had to hold back farmers who parked a tractor within a metre of the front door of the provincial assembly and threatened to break it down unless the deputies backed down.

The building was pelted with eggs and police from Germany were drafted in to support their Dutch colleagues. Zuid-Holland said it would continue to apply its existing rules and re-evaluate them in May next year, following a meeting with farmers.

‘Zuid-Holland is the most densely populated area of the Netherlands,’ said deputy Jeannette Baljeu. ‘It is a challenge for the administration every day to find a better balance between the activities of residents, businesses, farmers and nature.

‘As a province we are always working together to find a good balance. That’s why we are willing to hold talks. Not just with people in agriculture, but other parties that are affected by the nitrogen regulations.’

(DutchNews)