David Icke barred due to risk to public order
The organisers of the big protest march against government policy, held on Sunday in Amsterdam, want to bring preliminary relief proceedings against the refusal to allow British conspiracy theorist David Icke to enter the Netherlands. Icke was due to give a speech at the meeting of the organisation Samen voor Nederland, but he was refused entry to the Netherlands.
David Icke received a letter from the Immigration and Naturalisation Service (IND) which stated that he is barred from entering the Schengen Area for two years because his physical presence could give rise to violent counter-demonstrations.
Wim Voermans, Professor of Constitutional and Administrative Law at Leiden University, says that our constitutional right to demonstrate is a great good and therefore you cannot just ban demonstrations. ‘But that right only applies to people who are already in the Netherlands’, he adds.
‘If you think the presence of someone from abroad could lead to public order problems, you can do something about admission at the front door. Once someone is through the gates at Schiphol, you can’t stop them’, Wim Voermans told the NOS.