A group of protesters watched from behind the fences at Huis ten Bosch Palace as a new Dutch cabinet was sworn in.
ADVERTISEMENTAround 20 Amnesty International activists participated in a demonstration in The Hague out of concern for the rule of law.
Dutch democracy is in danger, those gathered Tuesday morning said as the new Dutch government was being sworn in.
“Parties will soon enter the government, one of which does not even have members [PVV],” said one demonstrator, “Parties that sow hatred and exclude large groups of people in society.”
“We shouldn’t normalise that. It is not normal. We are speaking out, and we will continue to speak out.”
The group had awaited new Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof, along with incoming ministers and state secretaries, at the back entrance of the palace. However, the politicians arrived at the front entrance instead, so the group missed them.
The protestors failed to interrupt the government’s family photo, which started ten minutes earlier than planned, meaning they arrived just too late.
Schoof, the former head of the Dutch intelligence agency and counterterrorism office, signed an official royal decree on Tuesday to uphold his duties as the country’s prime minister.
The 67-year-old was installed alongside 15 other ministers who make up the country’s right-leaning coalition.
The four parties in the coalition are Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom (PVV), outgoing Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s centre-right People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy, the populist Farmer Citizen Movement and the centrist New Social Contract party.
Wilders’ far-right anti-immigration PVV party had won the largest share of seats in the Netherlands’ elections last November. However, it took Wilders 223 days to find enough allies to form a government.