*The Hague: A Dutch former far-right MP and right-hand man of Geert Wildershas set tongues wagging in the Netherlands after revealing he has convertedand become a Muslim, news reports said Tuesday.*
For seven years Joram van Klaveren fought a relentless campaign in theLower House against Islam in the Netherlands as a lawmaker for Wilders´Freedom Party (PVV).
At the time, the “hardliner pleaded for banning the burkha and minarets,saying ´we don´t want any Islam, or at least as little as possible in theNetherlands´,” the daily tabloid Algemeen Dagblad (AD) said.
But the 40-year-old Van Klaveren said he had changed his mind halfwaythrough writing an anti-Islam book, which he told the respected NRC daily“became a refutation of objections non-Muslims have” against the religion.
“If everything I wrote up to that point is true, and I believe that, then Iam a de facto Muslim,” he told the NRC.
Van Klaveren converted to Islam on October 26 last year, the NRC added inthe interview piece .
“His conversion has surprised both friend and enemy,” the AD newspaperadded.
Van Klaveren split with Wilders in 2014 after the PVV leader´scontroversial comments that year when asking supporters whether they wanted“fewer or more Moroccans in your city and the Netherlands”.
Wilders in 2016 was found guilty on discrimination charges.
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Van Klaveren then went on to form his own far-right party called “ForNetherlands” (VNL) but left politics after failing to win a single seat inthe 2017 elections.
“If this really isn´t a PR stunt to promote his book, then it really is anextraordinary choice for somebody who had a lot to say about the Islam,”his former VNL co-founder Jan Roos told the AD.
“But we have religious freedom in the Netherlands. He can worship whomeverhe wants,” Roos added.
Said Bouharrou, who serves on the Board of Moroccan Mosques in theNetherlands praised Van Klaveren.
“It is great when somebody who has been so critical of Islam… realises thatit is not so bad or perverse,” he told the AD.
“It is brave that he´s prepared to do it in public,” Bouharrou said. -APP/AFP
