A Dutch former far-right MP and right-hand man of anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders set tongues wagging in the Netherlands on Tuesday after revealing he has converted to Islam. Freedom Party (PVV) leader Wilders compared the conversion of ex-ally Joram van Klaveren to a "vegetarian working in a slaughterhouse".
For years Joram van Klaveren fought a relentless campaign in the Lower House against Islam in the Netherlands as a lawmaker for Wilders' party. At the time, the "hardliner pleaded for banning the burqa and minarets, saying 'we don't want any Islam, or at least as little as possible in the Netherlands'," the daily tabloid Algemeen Dagblad (AD) said. But the 40-year-old Van Klaveren said he had changed his mind halfway through writing an anti-Islam book.
The work "became a refutation of objections non-Muslims have" against the religion, he told the respected NRC daily on Tuesday. "If everything I wrote up to that point is true, and I believe that, then I am a de facto Muslim," he told the NRC.