Hilbrand Pier Anne Nawijn (born 8 August 1948) is a Dutch lawyer and politician of the local political party Lijst Hilbrand Nawijn (LHN) in

Zoetermeer Zoetermeer () is a city in the Western Netherlands, in the province of South Holland. The municipality covers an area of of which is water. A small village until the late 1960s, it had 6,392 inhabitants in 1950. By 2013 this had grown to 123,328 ...

. From 2002 to 2004, he served as a

Member Member may refer to: * Military jury, referred to as "Members" in military jargon * Element (mathematics), an object that belongs to a mathematical set * In object-oriented programming, a member of a class ** Field (computer science), entries in ...

of the

House of Representatives House of Representatives is the name of legislative bodies in many countries and sub-national entitles. In many countries, the House of Representatives is the lower house of a bicameral legislature, with the corresponding upper house often c ...

for the

Pim Fortuyn List The Pim Fortuyn List ( nl, Lijst Pim Fortuyn, LPF) was a political party in the Netherlands named after its eponymous founder Pim Fortuyn, a former university professor and political columnist. The party was considered populist, right-wing popul ...

party and from 2006 for the Party for the Netherlands. During his time in parliament, Nawijn was Minister for Integration
and Asylum Affairs in the first cabinet of

Jan Peter Balkenende Jan Pieter "Jan Peter" Balkenende Jr. (; born 7 May 1956) is a Dutch politician of the Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA) party and jurist who served as Prime Minister of the Netherlands from 22 July 2002 to 14 October 2010. Balkenende studied H ...

Early life

Nawijn was born in Kampen. The son of a

burgemeester Burgomaster (alternatively spelled burgermeister, literally "master of the town, master of the borough, master of the fortress, master of the citizens") is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief m ...

(mayor), he is a descendant of Firmin Navin, a French

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

who had fled to Holland in 1696 to escape persecution. After graduating Emelwerda College in

Emmeloord Emmeloord is the administrative centre of the municipality of Noordoostpolder, Flevoland, Netherlands. In 2019, it had a population of 26,055. Overview At the heart of the Noordoostpolder, where the three main drainage canals Lemstervaart, Urk ...

he studied law at the

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen The University of Groningen (abbreviated as UG; nl, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, abbreviated as RUG) is a public research university of more than 30,000 students in the city of Groningen in the Netherlands. Founded in 1614, the university is th ...

. He then worked for the Dutch Ministry of Justice and was a legal assistant at the main department of Constitutional and Criminal Law. He later founded his own legal firm ''Nawijn lawyers'' in Zoetermeer.

Political career

Following a long career working for the

Dutch Ministry of Justice The Ministry of Justice and Security ( nl, Ministerie van Justitie en Veiligheid; JenV) is the Dutch Ministry responsible for justice, imprisonment and public security. The Ministry was created in 1798 as the ''Department of Justice'', before i ...

he was elected in 2002 as a member of the Christen-Democratisch Appèl for the

municipal council A municipal council is the legislative body of a municipality or local government area. Depending on the location and classification of the municipality it may be known as a city council, town council, town board, community council, rural counci ...

. Nawijn was an early supporter of the openly

gay ''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'. While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...

, populist Dutch politician

Pim Fortuyn Wilhelmus Simon Petrus Fortuijn, known as Pim Fortuyn (; 19 February 1948 – 6 May 2002), was a Dutch politician, author, civil servant, businessman, sociologist and academic who founded the party Pim Fortuyn List (Lijst Pim Fortuyn or LPF) ...

and in 2002, when Fortuyn founded the

, Nawijn earned a place on the list. Despite the

assassination Assassination is the murder of a prominent or important person, such as a head of state, head of government, politician, world leader, member of a royal family or CEO. The murder of a celebrity, activist, or artist, though they may not have ...

of Fortuyn by an

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

activist, which happened days before the election, the LPF emerged with a successful result, thus bringing Nawijn into the Dutch

. He was appointed Minister for Integration and Immigration in the

first Balkenende cabinet The first Balkenende cabinet was the executive branch of the Netherlands government from 22 July 2002 until 27 May 2003. The cabinet was formed by the Christian-democratic Christian Democratic Appeal (CDA), the nationalistic Pim Fortuyn List (L ...

. Due to the instability of the LPF following Fortuyn's assassination, the first Balkenende cabinet lasted briefly, leading to early elections in 2003. Due to Nawijn's controversial

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

positions such as his support of the

death penalty Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

, which horrified many people in the Netherlands and was opposed by the LPF, he was placed at the bottom of the LPF's electoral list. This should have made it almost impossible for Nawijn to be reelected, however, the same statements which made him so unpopular to the political establishment won him a following among voters. On election day Nawijn received enough individual votes to once again enter the House of Representatives. Nawijn also voiced support for the reunification of

Flanders Flanders (, ; Dutch: ''Vlaanderen'' ) is the Flemish-speaking northern portion of Belgium and one of the communities, regions and language areas of Belgium. However, there are several overlapping definitions, including ones related to culture, ...

and the Netherlands. Despite still being a member of the LPF, Nawijn often was at odds with the party. In January 2005, he left the fragmented LPF with the goal of founding his own political party which conceptually would lean closer towards the ideas of the

far-right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

party

Vlaams Belang , ideology = , predecessor = Vlaams Blok , position = , europarl = Identity and Democracy , european = Identity and Democracy Party , youth_wing = Vlaams Belang Jongeren , colours = , ...

. Together with one of the leaders of Vlaams Belang,

Filip Dewinter Philip Michel Frans "Filip" Dewinter (born 11 September 1962) is a Belgian politician. He is one of the leading members of Vlaams Belang, a right-wing Flemish nationalist and secessionist political party. Together with Hugo Coveliers of the VLOT ...

, in June 2005 he announced the founding of a

think tank A think tank, or policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governmenta ...

during a controversial meeting with Dewinter in the former house of murdered politician Pim Fortuyn. Marten Fortuyn, Pim Fortuyn's brother, called this action provocative, and ''"I had expected otherwise from Nawijn."'' The influential Dutch magazine

Elsevier Elsevier () is a Dutch academic publishing company specializing in scientific, technical, and medical content. Its products include journals such as ''The Lancet'', ''Cell'', the ScienceDirect collection of electronic journals, '' Trends'', th ...

wrote: "According to (the LPF member of parliament) João Varela (politician), it was widely known that Pim Fortuyn wanted nothing to do with Dewinter, whose party

Vlaams Blok ''Vlaams Blok'' ( en, Flemish Block, or VB) was the name of a Belgian far-right and secessionist political party with an anti-immigration platform.Erk, 2005, pp. 493-502. Its ideologies embraced Flemish nationalism, calling for the independence ...

(resurrected as Vlaams Belang) had the previous year been forbidden due to racism." In the Dutch municipal elections of 2006, Nawijn managed, with his own new party, to gather 5 out of 39 seats in his hometown

. Later that year he entered the 2006 Dutch election with a new party, the Partij voor Nederland (''Party for the Netherlands''), but obtained no seats. During his campaign, Nawijn voiced his support for accepting

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian intelligence agency, foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gat ...

black sites In military terminology, a black site is a location at which an unacknowledged black operation or black project is conducted. According to the Associated Press, "Black sites are clandestine jails where prisoners generally are not charged with a ...

into the Netherlands in an interview in October 2006 in the Dutch newspaper Spits.

Later career

In early 2007, Nawijn participated in the Dutch version of '' So You Wanna Be a Popstar?'', broadcast by the Dutch commercial TV channel

SBS6 SBS6 is a Dutch free-to-air, free-to-cable commercial television channel, TV channel and is a part of Talpa TV, formerly known as SBS Broadcasting B.V. and now owned by Talpa Network. Other channels of the group in the Netherlands are Net5, Vero ...

, granting him fulfilment of one of his dreams. He stated that ''"Now that I have left national politics, I can do such things. An additional advantage is that it will keep me a bit 'in the picture'"''. As a result of his performances at the talent contest, which were met with public ridicule, Nawijn signed up for a five-year contract as a singer. His first single came out in May 2007, ''Hey Jumpen'', in the

jumpstyle Jumpstyle is an electronic dance style and music genre popular in Western Europe, originally in Belgium. Jumpstyling is often referred to as "Jumpen": a combination of the English word 'Jump' and the Dutch and German suffix '-en' (meaning "to j ...

genre, and reached #45 in the Dutch

Single Top 100 The Dutch Single Top 100 or Single Top 100 is a Dutch chart, based on official physical single sales, legal downloads and since July 2013 streaming and composed by Dutch Charts. It is one of the three official charts, the other two being the Du ...

charts. In February 2008 he returned to his original career in law. Since 2010, Nawijn has served as a councilor for his local political party ''Lijst Hilbrand Nawijn'' in Zoetermeer. In 2018, while giving a television interview discussing crime and anti-social behaviour in the area, he and the camera crew were attacked by a local gang before police intervened.

References

External links

;Official *
Mr. H.P.A. (Hilbrand) Nawijn
Parlement & Politiek {{DEFAULTSORT:Nawijn, Hilbrand 1948 births Living people Christian Democratic Appeal politicians Dutch Calvinist and Reformed Christians Dutch corporate directors Dutch jurists Dutch management consultants Dutch people of French descent Dutch political party founders Huguenots Independent politicians in the Netherlands Leaders of political parties in the Netherlands Members of the House of Representatives (Netherlands) Ministers without portfolio of the Netherlands Municipal councillors in South Holland People from Kampen, Overijssel People from Zoetermeer Party chairs of the Netherlands Pim Fortuyn List politicians University of Groningen alumni 20th-century Dutch civil servants 20th-century Dutch lawyers 20th-century Dutch politicians 21st-century Dutch businesspeople 21st-century Dutch lawyers 21st-century Dutch politicians