The College of Mayor and Aldermen does not believe that council questions about the campaign against discrimination in the commercial housing market were answered unfairly. This is what the college reports in response to follow-up questions from the VVD (people’s party for freedom and democracy) and LPF (list pim fortuyn).
At the beginning of the year, the campaign, which calls attention to discrimination in the commercial housing market, caused a stir. The VVD and the LPF asked council questions about it. However, the opposition groups felt they were not answered fairly.
A WOB (public administration law) request by GeenStijl (news website) revealed that Alderman Toub had let slip that he found the text on the poster ‘rubbish’. This while the college had expressed its full support for the content and intention of the campaign – something that the LPF and VVD contend is contradictory.
Style figure
The College of Mayor and Aldermen does not agree with that reading, according to answers to follow-up questions. The comment about the language in the campaign being “abrasive” and overly “emphasising the contradiction” would have been made in a different context, namely as a side note to the style of the text. So it was not about the campaign as a whole, the college believes.
That the campaign would play groups apart, or be polarising, is therefore also not the opinion of the college or the individual Alderman. “We have received negative as well as positive responses”, the college said.
Source: Studio040
Translated by: Bob
