Netherlands: Citizens check their own German border

In the heated debate about asylum policy in the Netherlands, citizens organized vehicle controls on the German border on their own.

On the federal road 408, which runs from the Lower Saxony Haren (EMS) in the direction of the central recording facility for refugees in the Dutch Ter Apel, cars equipped with warning vests and lamps on Saturday evening, as media also reported with video recordings of control. On Tuesday, the government in the Netherlands was broken in the dispute over a harder asylum policy.

The provisional Minister of Migration David van Weel called on the population on Sunday evening not to take the right into their own hands. “The influx of asylum seekers must be reduced. That is why we are committed to stricter asylum laws and better border controls,” said the minister. “Frustration is understandable, but do not take the law into your own hands. Let the police and border police do your work. Stick to the law,” said van Weel.

The right -wing populist Geert Wilders, meanwhile, spoke of a “fantastic initiative”. “That should happen everywhere on the border,” he said. If the Prime Minister does not immediately use the army for controls, “we should do it ourselves”. He likes to take part in a next control campaign of residents at the border.

Wilders had declared his party’s withdrawal from the four-party coalition on Tuesday, in which it was involved as the strongest force. He justifies this by the fact that the other coalition partners were not willing to meet his demands for a tough course in asylum policy.

The Dutch police and the border community Westerwolde announced that it was forbidden for the population to stop cars – only the police should. “Such actions create enormously dangerous situations on and along the street,” it said in a joint explanation, as the newspaper “de Gelderlander” reported. “Such actions are really not acceptable.” According to the newspaper, there were calls for renewed border controls for Sunday evening on social media.

The campaign was therefore involved in about twelve men, who according to their own statements are dissatisfied that asylum seekers come freely across the border to the Netherlands. “Nothing happens. Then we just do it ourselves,” the newspaper quoted one involved.