Wilders calls for referendum on minaret ban

The anti-Islam PVV wants to hold a referendum on the building of new minarets in the Netherlands, along the line of the Swiss vote, party leader Geert Wilders said on Wednesday. Wilders said he is to submit draft legislation to parliament to pave the way for a public vote.

“Minarets hurt the eyes. They are the towers of a rising desert ideology,” the Telegraaf quoted Wilders as saying. Minarets have nothing to do with religion, he said. Rather, they are meant to be an “imperialist and ideological sign of domination’.

Dutch News, 21 September 2011