Undercover journalist gains easy access to Geert Wilders

Geert Wilders   Photo AP

Geert Wilders  Photo AP

Undercover journalist gains easy access to Geert Wilders

Published: 7 January 2010 16:14 | Changed: 7 January 2010 17:46

By our news staff

An undercover Dutch journalist spent four months working for Geert Wilder's populist PVV party. She was given unchecked access to the right-wing politician, a frequent recipient of death threats.
 

“I could have killed him,” were the first words of Karen Geurtsen’s article published in the magazine HP-De Tijd on Thursday. Posing as an intern, Geurtsen spent four months undercover, working with Geert Wilders and his anti-immigration party, PVV.

The breach of security is particularly painful since Wilders, a politician with controversial views on Islam, has been under permanent government protection since the assassination of film-maker Theo van Gogh. Wilders is constantly escorted by a private security detail and lives in a specially prepared safe house.

According to Geurtsen, she had “dozens” of opportunities to take the life of the best protected Dutch politician. As a party staff member she was allowed unchecked access to the PVV’s offices.

The National Coordinator for Fighting Terrorism (NCTb) is responsible for Wilder’s security. A spokesperson for the NCTb had no comment when asked whether his agency should have prevented the journalist from gaining access to the PVV’s leader. “Generally speaking,” he said, “security agencies only screen people in key positions of trust. That description does not cover staff members of political parties.” Scrutinising prospective employees is primarily the responsibility of the employing organisation, he added.

According to Karen Geurtsen, it would not have been hard to discover she was a journalist. “I am listed as a contributor to HP/De Tijd in its masthead,” she said. “It also easy to find evidence of my occupation as a journalist online.”

Jan Dijkgraaf, editor in chief of HP/De Tijd, said his magazine had pursued the story because polls have shown that the number of highly educated people considering the PVV as a possible electoral choice is growing. “Our aspiration is to publish a magazine for intelligent people, and we wanted to know what the PVV was really like,” he said. ”A lot of people say stuff about them, but nobody really knows anything for sure. Is it really an extremist right-wing party, as some people say, or a prim and proper political party who have turned up the volume a notch to get attention?” According to Dijkgraaf, covert journalism was the only way to find out, since the PVV has proven to be an impenetrable fortress for enquiring journalists.

'Leftist cockroaches'

Geurtsen’s observations will be published in a series in HP/De Tijd in the coming weeks, with the first instalment published last Thursday. In an interview, she described an atmosphere of hostility in the party’s ranks. Political enemies were occasionally referred to as “leftist cockroaches,” She noted. In her first article, she cited an unsubstantiated rumour accusing the politician of an extramarital affair.

Asked to summarise the series his magazine would be publishing, Dijkgraaf said, “The PVV is a terribly shoddily run, amateurish organisation. Geurtsen was allowed to write speeches for PVV parliamentarian De Roon a few days after she started work. Speeches he would then deliver in parliament. The people get more stupid as you move down the organisational ladder. The articles read like a soap-opera.”

In a Twitter message, Geert Wilders called the undercover infiltration of his party “disgusting” and “a new low for leftist media”.

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