Anti-Islam Dutch lawmaker fans flames from security bubble
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — With his flamboyant shock of blonde-dyed hair and fiery anti-Islam rhetoric, Dutch politician Geert Wilders comes across a man who doesn’t mind the limelight.
Yet for the past dozen years, the right-wing populist has spent much of his time holed up in anonymous safe houses or in a heavily guarded wing of Parliament.
Tight security surrounds Wilders night and day, and he hardly ventures outdoors. For his handful of campaign events ahead of a March 15 election, he travelled in convoys of armoured cars.
“It’s a total lack of freedom. That’s how I would say it,” Wilders, who leads the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, told The Associated Press in a recent interview.