Partij_voor_Naastenliefde,_Vrijheid_en_Diversiteit

Partij voor Naastenliefde, Vrijheid en Diversiteit

Partij voor Naastenliefde, Vrijheid en Diversiteit (Party for Neighbourly Love, Freedom, and Diversity) is a Dutch political party. It was officially founded on 31 May, 2006, by Marthijn Uittenbogaard (chairman), Ad van den Berg (treasurer) and Norbert de Jonge (secretary) and a few other members who wanted to remain anonymous. The party currently has no parliamentary representation and is yet to participate in any election. Its motto is "sapere aude ("Have courage to use your own reason")." In October 2006, it became clear that the party did not receive enough signatures to partake in the 2006 elections. The party would have had to raise 570 public declarations of support from Dutch citizens in order to field candidates in parliamentary elections.

In August 2007 the party decided to request the nickname anti-religion-party instead of the stigmatic nickname 'pedopartij' as they have many more items in their program to curb the influence of superstition and religion and say in the first paragraph of their statutes that their primary goal is to break dogmas.

Platform

According to their official statement, the PNVD's platform aims to maximize diversity and liberty. They propose allowing individuals, from the age of 12, to vote, have sex, gamble, choose their place of residence, and use soft drugs. Hard drugs would be legal at 16, as that would be the new age of majority. They also intend to eliminate marriage in the law, permit public nudity anywhere in the country, make railway travel free, and institute a comprehensive animal rights platform.

Sexuality

The PNVD seeks to have the legal age-of-consent lowered to 12, and, in the long run, completely eliminated (except in dependent or intrafamilial relationships.) They reason that only "coerced" or "dangerous" sexual activity should be punished. They also aim to equalize the legal age where one can perform in pornography with the legal age-of-consent. Prostitution would be legal at the age of 16. The PNVD also wants to legalise private use of child pornography (calling outlawing thereof "censorship" in the platform) and allow non-violent pornography to be screened on daytime television. They are against laws that would explicitly outlaw sexual contact between animals and humans (which is not illegal in the Netherlands now).

Treasurer Van den Berg claims that, "Rearing is also about introducing children to sex". Because of their controversial viewpoints on children and sexuality, they are often called "paedo(philes)-party" by the people and in the media.

Also, the party's platform calls for separate imprisonment facilities for sex offenders, arguing that the country would otherwise have indirect torture laws.

Animal rights

The PNVD ultimately aims to establish a universal treaty guaranteeing all animals basic rights.

In addition, the party plans to heavily restrict animal testing and completely prohibit the consumption of meat and fish: they view the killing of animals, no matter what purpose it serves, as murder. Industries currently depending on the sale of animal meat would receive provisional financial support from the government. Hunting and fishing for sport would also be banned. The party also supports laws criminalizing the "sexual maltreatment" of animals.

Controversy

Multiple positions taken by the PNVD have been controversial, especially those concerning children. In a May 2006 opinion poll, 82% of respondents wanted the Dutch government to stop the party from competing in the elections. The anti-pedophile foundation "Soelaas petitioned the courts to ban the party, but the judges ruled in the PNVD's favour. "The freedom of expression, the freedom of assembly and the freedom of association ... should be seen as the foundations of the democratic rule of law and the PNVD is also entitled to these freedoms," the court said in a statement.

The party's ties to paedophile activism have also drawn much attention: Marthijn Uittenbogaard used to be the treasurer of Vereniging MARTIJN, an organization which advocates romantic and sexual relationships between adults and children, and all of its founders have identified as pedophiles. The treasurer, Ad van den Berg (then 43), was convicted in 1987 for molesting an 11-year old boy. He was fined and given a suspended prison sentence. The Dutch television show "Netwerk" monitored Van den Berg for three months. They discovered that he still has an under-age boyfriend. In June 2006, Norbert de Jonge was expelled from his pedagogy degree course at the Radboud University Nijmegen, owing to his involvement with the party and identification as a pedophile. He sought legal action against the university but was ruled against on grounds that Radboud was a Catholic university that was allowed to uphold Catholic morals. In 2007 he was refused admittance as a orthopedagogy student by the university in Leiden, which has no religious background. De Jonge's appeal against this was rejected by the College of Appeal for higher education CBHO. They ruled that the university has a right to ban him, because of the damage it would suffer to its reputation and relationship with pedagogical institutions. De Jonge's only option to appeal against this ruling is at the European Court of Human Rights. In earlier statements De Jonge stated he would keep fighting to the bitter end.