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Far-right parties in Europe seek to expel Muslims: Scholar

Sunday, 19 February 2017 3:23 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 19 February 2017 3:23 PM ]

Dutch far-right politician, Geert Wilders (C), addresses journalists as he officially launches his parliamentary election campaign in Spijkenisse on February 18, 2017. (Photo by AFP)

Hard-line Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, has launched a campaign for upcoming parliamentary elections in the Netherlands by scorning the Moroccan community in the country.

Moroccan-Dutch people make up two percent of the Netherlands’ population. Wilders has been tried in the past for offensive remarks against them and has been also taken to court for anti-Islam comments.

Liaqat Ali Khan, a lecturer at Washburn University, believes there is a “very strong white nationalism movement” in the United States and some parts of Europe, which seeks to expel all immigrants from Muslim countries.

“I think there is a small segment of population and the politicians representing them, who want to get rid of all the immigrants, mostly from Muslim countries, like in the Netherlands it is Moroccans and in France there are Moroccans and other North Africans,” the academic told Press TV in an interview on Sunday.

He noted that it seems like the far-right political parties in Europe feel that Islam is threatening the Western values and, therefore, are proposing plans for barring new Muslims from coming to their countries while making life harder for the ones who are already there.

Khan further predicted that Wilders is not going to win by a big margin, adding that there are a lot of political parties in the Netherlands, which would not join him in order to form a government.

“So it seems like Wilders and his party - Freedom Party - will remain a fringe political party and they will continue to speak against Muslims, but I do not think they will be able to do something substantial in terms of either removing Muslims from the Netherlands or making their life difficult,” he said in conclusion.

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