Wealthy investors are caught in a huge insurance fraud, and a rebellion isn’t that at all. Are Dutch judges enforcing Sharia law? And a couple of contrasting photos. It’s all in the Dutch dailies.

Dutch investors taken for a ride
“Board and lawyer of Quality Investments arrested” reads a headline in De Telegraaf. The paper says wealthy Dutch, Belgian and Spanish people were conned into investing “over 200 million [euros]” in Dutch-based QI’s mega insurance scam.

QI guaranteed investors rich pickings, explaining that it was buying up life insurance policies from elderly Americans. When they died, the policy payments would finance the whole QI enterprise.

De Telegraaf says Dutch investigators together with officials from abroad have raided premises in the Netherlands, Spain, Dubai, Britain, Switzerland and the US over the last few days. Real estate, luxury goods including cars, boats, watches and even a plane were impounded.

Trouw explains the QI construction was simply a ‘pyramid game’, with new investors’ money bankrolling the dividends being paid out. It says the Financial Markets Authority, the Dutch watchdog which safeguards the interests of Dutch investors, had had QI in its sights for some time.

De Volkskrant gives a list of recent major investment frauds, saying that rich Dutch people keep getting taken for a ride. The VEB investors’ group tells the paper: “A slick film and guaranteed interest of 8 percent - people are bound to fall for that”. Investors are warned always to be wary of a guaranteed return – and a minimum investment of over 50,000 euros.

When is a rebellion not a rebellion?
The initiative launched by six local branches of the Labour Party (PvdA) “to begin a discussion on the party’s course” is described as “a rebellion which isn’t a rebellion” by de Volkskrant. The move has apparently been welcomed by the PvdA leadership.

Michiel Emmelkamp, former chair of the PvdA’s Young Socialists group, is heading the non-rebellion and argues that “a bit of a shake-up” can only do the PvdA good.

He says education and healthcare are being squeezed but that the debate in parliament is centred on trifling details. “The left is not leading at the moment. The Netherlands needs a progressive movement coming up from below.”

AD’s take is rather different and it chooses another quote from Mr Emmelkamp: “The party’s silent and sluggish and is offering no serious argument against this government’s plans”.

Drawing an obvious conclusion from the developments, AD runs a piece on PvdA leader Job Cohen. The party’s rank and file are said to be losing confidence in their leader. The paper says his support within the party has slipped from 72 percent in January to 50 percent at present.

Sharia law in Dutch courts?
Today’s nrc.next picks up on the fact that the populist Freedom Party (PVV) is launching a debate in parliament today on whether Islamic Sharia law is increasingly being applied by Dutch judges in for example divorce, paternity and inheritance cases.

The paper says it’s actually quite usual for all kinds of foreign law, not just Islamic Sharia, to be applied in Dutch courts - as long as the process does not challenge Dutch judicial, social or moral principles and values. Just think of cases involving contracts drawn up abroad, or accidents involving foreign cars.

Dutch judges only turn to foreign laws, we are told, if asked to do so by the people involved in the case or if there are very good reasons for the move. And, they will only do this if the result is not unjust when judged by Dutch standards.

One photo
Under the heading “Tableau vivant”, Trouw devotes half its front page to part of a photograph by Erwin Olaf. The scene depicts the liberation on 3 October 1574 of the city of Leiden from months of siege by Spanish troops. It looks like an old master’s canvas, with figures in the crowded scene picked out in light and shade.

The paper tells us that painters from the 16th century onwards have depicted the event, one of the high points of Dutch history. Olaf has produced a modern-day interpretation, with the accent on the famine and plague endured by those in the besieged city.

Another photo
De Telgraaf’s front-page photo is anything but lively – four young women, and one young man, lie on the pavement of Amsterdam’s Dam Square. They are asleep in the sunshine.

Beautiful weather in the autumn is dubbed ‘an old wives’ summer’ in the Dutch vernacular, says the paper. But it points out that there were lots of young people basking in the sunshine in the Dutch capital yesterday.