Dutch soccer riot threatens government as minister quits

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof’s government avoided collapse after a secretary resigned in protest over alleged racist comments made during Cabinet meetings.

Schoof and leaders of the four-party governing coalition held an emergency meeting that ran late into Friday night, the latest fallout from antisemitic attacks on Israeli football fans in Amsterdam last week. Benefits and Customs Minister Nora Achahbar, who is of Moroccan descent, resigned after she was disheartened by a culture of inappropriate, off-color jokes by fellow Cabinet members in recent weeks, a ministry spokesperson said.

Achahbar’s New Social Contract party is part of a coalition led by the Party for Freedom headed by far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders. While her resignation raised concern that other ministers from her party might quit, toppling the coalition, Schoof said they will remain in their posts.

Achahbar also objected to a Freedom Party minister’s failure to distance himself from earlier anti-Moroccan comments by Wilders, her spokesperson said. “The polarized responses in recent weeks have had such an impact on my position that I believe I can no longer fulfill my responsibilities,” Achahbar said in her resignation letter.

“This Cabinet is against racism, antisemitism and discrimination,” Schoof said in a news conference late Friday. “There was or is no racism,” he said.

Wilders has attacked the Netherlands’ Moroccan community after the football violence blamed on Palestinian supporters. “No more Jew hunt in this country, I do not accept it. And punish the perpetrators — especially Moroccans — very severely, take away Dutch nationality and deport them,” he said on social media on Wednesday.

Schoof attributed the attacks against Israeli fans to “a specific group of young people with a migration background.”

The Schoof-led coalition took office in July as the most right-leaning Dutch government in decades, pushing for the strictest-ever immigration policies. The Cabinet tightened border controls, cracked down on asylum seekers and asked the European Union for an opt-out from the bloc’s migration agreement.

The government has been discussing measures including an expansion of police powers and tougher penalties for antisemitism.

Amsterdam Mayor Femke Halsema last week announced security measures such as preventive frisking, a ban on face-covering clothing and a temporary prohibition of demonstrations.

After winning elections in November 2023, Wilders’ ambition of forming a right-wing Cabinet proved to be an uphill task and he abandoned his bid for prime minister to move talks forward. The four coalition parties instead picked Schoof, a former spy chief without party affiliation, as prime minister of the EU’s fifth-largest economy.