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Netherlands' Polish community web site hacked

PR dla Zagranicy
Peter Gentle 09.03.2012 12:23
A Polish web site challenging discrimination against Poles and other Central Europeans in the Netherlands has been disabled by hackers, amid an ongoing political furore over immigration in the country.

“We have been attacked by hackers for a second time,” web site administrators for polonia.nl stated on their Facebook page.

News updates by the Polish community's web site are currently being released via the organisation's Facebook and Twitter pages, until the web site can be reactivated.

The hacking comes following a pledge by Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte last week that his government supports immigration from Central European countries.

Rutte was trying to distance himself from a web site run by the populist Freedom Party., which invites members of the public to denounce Central European migrants.

The Dutch web site run by politician Gert Wilders has been criticised by the European Commission as “an open call for intolerance.”

Minister for Foreign Affairs and Asylum Gerd Leers tried to defuse tensions during a visit to Warsaw last week.

“My government and parliament consider the presence of Polish workers as an asset to our society,” he said.

“At least 95 percent of Poles in Holland are people who behave well, good people, but you need to be aware of the negative phenomena among immigrants,” he added

Polish prime minister Donald Tusk has said that “there is no problem of Poles in Holland.”

In his opinion, “it is Holland that has a problem, because it is the only EU country that is behaving controversially as regards immigrants and the enlargement of the Schengen zone.” (Holland opposes the accession of Romania and Bulgaria).

In another example of rising tension in the Netherlands, two cars with Polish number plates were set alight in the western town of Noordwijk last weekend

In September 2011, 12 Polish cars had their windows broken in the same town. (nh/pg)

tags: EU & Society
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