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Dilan Yeşilgöz

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In this Dutch name, the birth surname is Yeşilgöz and the marital name is Zegerius.

Dilan Yeşilgöz
Yeşilgöz in 2024
Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
Incumbent
Assumed office
14 August 2023
Preceded byMark Rutte
Minister of Justice and Security
In office
10 January 2022 – 2 July 2024
Prime MinisterMark Rutte
Preceded byFerdinand Grapperhaus
Succeeded byDavid van Weel
State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate Policy
In office
25 May 2021 – 10 January 2022
Serving with Mona Keijzer (2021)
Prime MinisterMark Rutte
Preceded byMartijn van Dam (2017)
Succeeded byHans Vijlbrief
Member of the House of Representatives
Incumbent
Assumed office
6 December 2023
In office
23 March 2017 – 3 September 2021
Personal details
Born (1977-06-18) 18 June 1977 (age 47)
Ankara, Turkey
Citizenship
Political partyPeople's Party for Freedom and Democracy (2009–present)
Spouse
René Zegerius
​
(m. 2013)​
Alma materVrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius[a] (née Yeşilgöz; born 18 June 1977) is a Dutch politician who has served as Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy since 2023. She also served as minister of justice and security in the fourth Rutte cabinet from 10 January 2022 to 2 July 2024. Yeşilgöz previously served as a member of the House of Representatives from 2017 to 2021 and as State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate Policy from 2021 until 2022.

Early life

[edit]

Yeşilgöz was born in Ankara, Turkey, and migrated to the Netherlands as a child.[5] Her mother is of Turkish origin and her father is Kurdish[6][7] and originally from Tunceli, Turkey.[8] Her mother, Fatma Özgümüş, is the director of the Netherlands Refugee Organization (VON).[9] Her father, Yücel Yeşilgöz, a left-wing trade unionist, escaped from Turkey and sought asylum in the Netherlands in 1980, after the 1980 coup. Dilan Yeşilgöz, at the age of 7 and as a refugee, escaped and claimed asylum in the Netherlands, along with her mother and sister.[10]

After receiving her secondary education at the Vallei College in Amersfoort between 1991 and 1997, Yeşilgöz studied social and cultural sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, where she obtained a master's degree in culture, organization and management in 2003.[11][12]

Political career

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Yeşilgöz-Zegerius started her political career at the Socialist Party, where Yesilgöz was a board member for the Amersfoort branch of the party.[13] After this she started writing for the youth delegation of the Labour Party and followed an internship at GroenLinks.[14]

In 2009 Dilan chose to leave the SP and join the VVD.[15] From 2014 to 2017, Yeşilgöz-Zegerius held a seat in the municipal council of Amsterdam.[16] She was placed fourth on the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy list in the 2014 municipal election. As a councilor, Yeşilgöz committed to tackling and criminalizing street harassment of LGBT people and women. She worked on this in the city council for three years, but proposals were always rejected by a majority. When she left for the House of Representatives in 2017, then mayor Eberhard van der Laan praised her tenacity. He called it his farewell gift to Yeşilgöz that there would be an integrated approach to street intimidation in Amsterdam, based on a proposal she had submitted with Marijke Shashavari of the CDA at the time. A majority of the city council approved this proposal. De Volkskrant characterized her tenacious nature as a "pit bull with empathy".[17]

Yeşilgöz-Zegerius was elected to the House of Representatives in the 2017 general election. She initially served as her party's spokesperson for justice and security,[18] but her portfolio later included climate policy and energy policy.[19] On 25 May 2021, Yesilgöz was appointed State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate Policy in the demissionary third Rutte cabinet, serving alongside Mona Keijzer.[19] On 10 January 2022, she was appointed Minister of Justice and Security in the fourth Rutte cabinet.

The cabinet collapsed over disagreements about immigration reform on 7 July 2023, triggering a November 2023 snap election. On 12 July – two days after Prime Minister Mark Rutte declared he would no longer lead the party – Yeşilgöz announced her candidacy to become the next leader of the VVD.[20] The party board formally nominated her for the position the following day, and Yeşilgöz officially became party leader of the VVD on 14 August.[21][22] The VVD came in third in the snap election with 24 seats. Yeşilgöz became the party's parliamentary leader, but the duties were performed by Sophie Hermans due to Yeşilgöz's continued role as minister.[23] In June 2024, opposition parties filed a censure and a no-confidence motion, neither of which received a majority, against Yeşilgöz, because she had claimed, following the cabinet collapse, that successive family reunifications resulted in thousands of additional asylum seekers per year. The actual figure was later revealed to be in the tens per year.[24]

The Schoof cabinet was sworn in on 2 July 2024, bringing an end to Yeşilgöz's term as minister.[25]

Political positions

[edit]

As minister of justice and security, Yesilgöz advocated for criminal justice reform and strict policies against terrorism and organized crime. She supported laws to protect journalists who had been threatened for their work and supports deporting extremist imams from the Schengen area. In 2019, Yesilgöz called for a ban on "single shots" and heavy flares within the F2 category of the Fireworks policy in the European Union, a policy idea which was opposed by the rest of the VVD. She also supported mandatory use of body cameras for police officers.[26] Although from a refugee background, Yesilgöz has said she would pursue further controls on immigration if elected Prime Minister.[27]

In 2019, Yesilgöz argued that Dutch ISIS terrorists detained by Kurdish forces should be tried on the spot rather than be repatriated to the Netherlands. She also argued in favour of blocking the repatriation of ISIS members, an idea which was opposed by coalition parties D66 and ChristenUnie who argued they should face trial in the Netherlands.[28][29]

In 2022, Yesilgöz delivered the annual Hendrik Jan Schoo lecture entitled "Doing What It Takes to Protect Our Democratic Rule of Law" in which she criticised wokeism, far-right politicians, and conspiracy theorists, and argued that the Dutch constitutional state is allegedly under pressure from left-wing activism.[30][31] Yesilgöz considers Frits Bolkestein as her main liberal role model.[32]

In contrast to her predecessor Mark Rutte, Yesilgöz said she would not exclude Geert Wilders and the PVV from coalition talks ahead of the 2023 Dutch general election.[27] Following November 2024 Amsterdam attacks targeting supporters of the Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv F.C., Yeşilgöz stated that religion should not influence public life. She said that organized or political religious movements can be a danger to society, giving Islamism as an example. She reiterated her support of reforms to the constitution's freedom of education.[33]

Personal life

[edit]

Yesilgöz married René Zegerius in 2013.[34] She is an Ajax supporter and a country music fan.[35]

Although she has dual nationality, she considers herself Dutch and not Turkish. On the television program College Tour, she stated in September 2023 that she had never had a Turkish passport and that she had only known for a year that she still had Turkish nationality. With this knowledge, she says she formally renounced her Turkish nationality, though it had not yet been granted by the Turkish government at the time of the interview.[36]

Electoral history

[edit]
Electoral history of Dilan Yeşilgöz
Year Body Party Pos. Votes Result Ref.
Party seats Individual
2014 Amsterdam Municipal Council People's Party for Freedom and Democracy 4 679 6 Won [37]
2017 House of Representatives 19 5,643 33 Won [38]
2021 House of Representatives 5 45,630 34 Won [39]
2023 House of Representatives 1 1,356,883 24 Won [40]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ^ In Dutch, the name Dilan Yeşilgöz is pronounced [ˈdilɑ ɲeːˈɕilɡʏs].[4] In isolation, the names are pronounced [ˈdilɑn] and [jeːˈɕilɡʏs].

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Van der Staaij: Rutte is als vervellende slang • CDA: Kabinet moet vertrouwen burger herwinnen". 18 January 2022. Archived from the original on 18 January 2022. Retrieved 18 January 2022.
  2. ^ "Dilan Yesilgoz: 'Ik ben geen hoer als ik 's nachts op het CS ben'". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). 14 January 2016. Archived from the original on 31 March 2023. Retrieved 11 July 2023.
  3. ^ "Wilders matigt toon, maar zeker niet op alle gebieden. 'We moeten allemaal over onze schaduw heen springen'". 16 September 2023. Archived from the original on 28 October 2023. Retrieved 28 October 2023.
  4. ^ "Vragenvuur - Minister Yesilgöz-Zegerius". YouTube. 22 March 2022. Archived from the original on 7 March 2023. Retrieved 7 March 2023.
  5. ^ "Dilan Yesilgöz: 'Mijn afkomst is relevant als ik die relevant vind'". Het Parool (in Dutch). 17 July 2017. Archived from the original on 3 February 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  6. ^ "Mediagenieke VVD'er Yesilgöz maakte bliksemsnel carrière". 12 July 2023. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
  7. ^ "De wispelturige politieke zoektocht van Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius". Financieel Dagblad. Archived from the original on 6 January 2022. Retrieved 6 January 2022.
  8. ^ "Dersimli kadın siyasetçi Hollanda'da bakan oldu". Rûdaw (in Turkish). 26 May 2021. Archived from the original on 4 January 2022. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  9. ^ "VVD Amsterdam - De Vrije Amsterdammer: Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius". VVD (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 12 February 2022. Retrieved 3 September 2023.
  10. ^ @OOktayyildiz3 (12 July 2023). "16-)sendikacı Yücel Yeşilgöz'ün kızı. Yücel Yeşilgöz, darbe sonrası 1980 yılında Türkiye'den kaçarak Hollanda'ya sığınma talebinde bulunmuş.Dilan Yeşilgöz de, annesi ve kız kardeşi ile birlikte 1984 yılında bir tekneyle Yunanistan'ın Kos adasına kaçmış, oradan da mülteci..." (Tweet) (in Turkish). Retrieved 12 July 2023 – via Twitter.
  11. ^ Members of Cabinet: Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius Archived 2023-04-02 at the Wayback Machine - website of the Government of the Netherlands
  12. ^ Wie zijn de VU-alumni in de Tweede Kamer? Archived 2023-06-05 at the Wayback Machine - website of VU Amsterdam
  13. ^ "'Rete-ambitieuze' en mediawijze Dilan". Het Parool (in Dutch). 12 June 2023. Archived from the original on 12 July 2023. Retrieved 7 July 2023.
  14. ^ "from the original on 3 March 2021. Retrieved on 7 July 2023". 3 March 2021. Archived from the original on 12 July 2023. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
  15. ^ Ede Botje, Harm (28 October 2023). "VVD-lijsttrekker Yeşilgöz organiseerde een SP-demonstratie tegen asielbeleid dat ze nu voorstaat". ftm. Retrieved 28 oktober 2023. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  16. ^ D. (Dilan) Yesilgöz-Zegerius Archived 2021-04-21 at the Wayback Machine, Parlement.com
  17. ^ "Dilan Yesilgöz: een pitbull met empathie die de Kamer in wil". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). 20 February 2017. Archived from the original on 12 July 2023. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
  18. ^ Lukas Kotkamp (3 January 2022), 8 things to know about the incoming Dutch government Archived 2022-01-05 at the Wayback Machine Politico Europe.
  19. ^ a b "VVD draagt Dilan Yesilgöz voor als staatssecretaris van Economische Zaken". NU.nl (in Dutch). 25 May 2021. Archived from the original on 25 May 2021. Retrieved 25 May 2021.
  20. ^ "Yesilgöz wil Rutte wél opvolgen als VVD-leider en stelt zich kandidaat". NU (in Dutch). 12 July 2023. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
  21. ^ "VVD-bestuur wil Yesilgöz als opvolger Rutte". NOS (in Dutch). 13 July 2023. Archived from the original on 13 July 2023. Retrieved 13 July 2023.
  22. ^ "Dutch Justice Minister Becomes New Leader of Rutte's VVD Party". Yahoo. 14 August 2023. Archived from the original on 20 August 2023. Retrieved 14 August 2023.
  23. ^ "Portefeuilleverdeling" [Portfolio allocation]. People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (in Dutch). 19 December 2022. Retrieved 21 February 2024.
  24. ^ Meijer, Remco (25 June 2024). "Moties tegen Yesilgöz verworpen, voormalig coalitiegenoot D66 wel voor 'afkeuring'" [Motions against Yeşilgöz rejected, former coalition partner D66 does support 'censure']. de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 25 June 2024.
  25. ^ "Ministers en staatssecretarissen kabinet-Schoof beëdigd" [Ministers and state secretaries of Schoof cabinet sworn in]. NOS (in Dutch). 2 July 2024. Retrieved 2 July 2024.
  26. ^ "Toch geen meerderheid binnen VVD voor verbod op zware vuurpijlen". Archived from the original on 25 January 2021. Retrieved 3 March 2021.
  27. ^ a b Boztas, Senay (19 November 2023). "Far-right Party for Freedom makes gains in poll ahead of Netherlands election". TheGuardian.com. Archived from the original on 19 November 2023. Retrieved 19 November 2023.
  28. ^ "VVD: 'IS-kinderen helemaal niet naar Nederland halen'". nporadio1.nl. 15 October 2019. Archived from the original on 15 October 2019. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  29. ^ "Coalitie diep verdeeld over IS-strijders: 'Het kabinet moet kunnen handelen. De tijd tikt'". de Volkskrant. 14 October 2019. Archived from the original on 15 October 2019. Retrieved 15 October 2019.
  30. ^ "Minister Yeşilgöz haalt in HJ Schoo-lezing uit naar woke-beweging en wappies". De Telegraaf. 12 September 2022. Archived from the original on 16 September 2022. Retrieved 17 September 2022.
  31. ^ Boztas, Senay (13 September 2022). "Justice minister slams wokeism, extreme right and conspiracy theorists in democracy speech". DutchNews.nl. Archived from the original on 16 August 2023. Retrieved 16 August 2023.
  32. ^ "VVD Amsterdam - De Vrije Amsterdammer: Dilan Yesilgoz-Zegerius". VVD (in Dutch). 20 February 2014. Archived from the original on 12 February 2022. Retrieved 3 September 2023.
  33. ^ Markus, Niels (21 November 2024). "Yesilgöz: Religie hoort geen invloed te hebben op het openbare leven" [Yeşilgöz: Religion should not influence public life]. Trouw (in Dutch). Retrieved 24 November 2024.
  34. ^ Reimink, Senna (3 January 2021). "René Zegerius de man van Dilan Yesilgöz-Zegerius". Sterren op TV (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 12 July 2023. Retrieved 12 July 2023.
  35. ^ @OOktayyildiz3 (12 July 2023). "17-)olarak Hollanda'ya gelmiş. Kamu yayıncısı NOS'a göre sıkı bir Ajax taraftarı olan Yeşilgöz'ün Moos adında bir köpeği var, country müziğini seviyor ve bileğinde büyükannesinin adının yazılı olduğu bir dövme bulunuyor" (Tweet) (in Turkish) – via Twitter.
  36. ^ "Dilan Yesilgöz over de Nederlandse nationaliteit". KRO-NCRV (in Dutch). Retrieved 12 December 2023.
  37. ^ "Dataset Kandidaten verkiezingen gemeenteraad Amsterdam". Retrieved 18 October 2024.
  38. ^ "Uitslag Tweede Kamerverkiezing 2017 (getekend exemplaar)" [Results House of Representatives 2017 (signed example)] (PDF). Dutch Electoral Council (in Dutch). 21 March 2017. pp. 20–21. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  39. ^ "Proces-verbaal verkiezingsuitslag Tweede Kamer 2021" [Report of the election results House of Representatives 2021] (PDF). Dutch Electoral Council (in Dutch). 29 March 2021. pp. 14–15. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
  40. ^ "Proces-verbaal van de uitslag van de verkiezing van de Tweede Kamer der Staten-Generaal 2023 d.d. 4 december 2023" [Report of the results of the election of the House of Representatives on 4 December 2023] (PDF). Dutch Electoral Council (in Dutch). 4 December 2023. pp. 15–16. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
[edit]
Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Justice and Security
2022–2024 		Succeeded by
Party political offices
Preceded by Leader of the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy
2023–present 		Incumbent
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