AMSTERDAM--Prime Minister Rob Jetten has warned that hatred and intolerance directed at the LGBTQI+ community are increasing, while progress achieved through decades of advocacy and legal reform is being weakened in countries around the world.
Speaking on Wednesday at the WorldPride Human Rights Conference in Amsterdam, Jetten said several countries were moving backwards on equal-rights protections and that homophobic hate speech had become more open and aggressive.
He said the trend was being encouraged by “toxic, highly organised and well-funded groups hiding behind the façade of freedom of expression.”
Jetten also reflected on the July 25 attack at a Pride event in Berlin, where one person was killed and 29 others were injured. The suspect was later shot and killed by police.
Despite the anger and grief caused by the attack, Jetten said his “heart was filled with hope” when thousands gathered days later at Amsterdam’s Homomonument, which honours LGBTQI+ people persecuted because of their identity.
The Prime Minister’s address was interrupted shortly after he began speaking when pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanted, “Where is your red line?” in reference to protests over the war in Gaza. One demonstrator accused him of attending a human-rights conference while being complicit in genocide.
As security escorted the demonstrators from the venue, Jetten asked the audience to applaud them and described the situation in Gaza and the West Bank as “horrific.”
Turning to the spread of online hatred, Jetten accused major social-media platforms of failing to adequately moderate hate speech and said extremist groups increasingly felt free to operate without restraint.
“In my view, the rise of online hatred is one of the biggest threats facing LGBTQI+ people today,” he said. “Misinformation, and disinformation, can be spread in the blink of an eye, with a single mouse-click.”
He warned that such messages often reach wider audiences than civil-society groups, youth workers and health organizations.
“This is always how hatred takes hold: in the shadows, outside the spotlight of society, underestimated by everyone,” Jetten said.
The Dutch government will invest €7.5 million annually over the next three years to improve the safety of the LGBTQI+ community. A national public-information campaign will also be introduced to counter discrimination and false information.
Part of the funding will support Purple Friday, an annual initiative through which Dutch schools focus on diversity and encourage students and teachers to wear purple as a show of solidarity. The initiative, organized by the GSA network of LGBTQI+ rights organization COC, began in 2010 and now involves thousands of primary and secondary schools.
Purple Friday has also faced growing resistance. Surveys conducted by NOS and RTL in 2024 found that three-quarters of participating schools had experienced problems, including posters being destroyed and rainbow flags being set on fire. Some schools reportedly abandoned the initiative or renamed it as a general “be yourself” day.
The conference is being held 25 years after the Netherlands became the first country to legalize marriage between same-sex couples. Four couples were married at Amsterdam City Hall shortly after midnight on April 1, 2001. Approximately 36,000 same-sex couples have married in the Netherlands since then.
