Talk:Volkert van der Graaf

"Animal rights activist?!

Why is this man being repeatedly called an "animal rights activist"? The label that should be used is an environmentalist extremist or simply murderer. Let's not hide the truth about who this man is by using "nice" terms to describe him.

I don't really understand... animal rights activism is the occupation. It has nothing to do with someone being a murderer or not. So, there is no problem with naming him an animal rights activist. Remember Wikipedia's neutrality policy ;) --Rastko Pocesta (talk) 12:16, 12 November 2010 (UTC)

Terminology

Somebody should really look up the correct English terminology for all the (civil law!) legal jargon. "Sitting" seems to me to be a mistranslation of the Dutch word "zitting".

I believe the term in english is a "hearing". --Hurkummer 11:58, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

Picture

I don't believe this is the correct picture of van der Graaf. This looks like the picture of Mohammed Bouyeri, the killer of Theo van Gogh. -- Michael, February 4th, 2005

yeah, thats not the guy. his photo can be found here: http://www.sampartij.org/organisatie/VvdG.htm .

i didn't linked it on the article page, cause i dont have a account in english version of wikipedia. it will have to be done by somebody else ;). -- luke, february 5th, 2006

Motive

I've just confronted someone in discussion on Czech forum who is convinced about Volkert van der Graaf killing P.F. in order to defend muslims. Because muslim-cause played quite an accidental (if none) role in the motivation of this animal rights activist I suggest to change the text a little bit so that this be more obvious. I haven't access to editing and frankly don't know how it should be done. --Vodník february 24th, 2006

The article about Van der Graaf's victim, Pim Fortuyn, states this:

"He was assassinated (...) by (...) Volkert van der Graaf, who claimed in court to murdering Fortuyn to stop him exploiting Muslims as "scapegoats"(...)". The article has a (by now broken) link to an article on The Telegraph. I've just found the current link :(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/netherlands/1425944/Fortuyn-killed-to-protect-Muslims.html)

and the article's title is "Fortuyn killed 'to protect Muslims'". Considering Fortuyn's activism was very focused on anti-immigration towards Muslims, I don't see how Muslim cause can be conceived as a "quite accidental". Eikinkloster (talk) 04:17, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

The intro seems somewhat pro Van der Graaf to me, he is an assassin. JeffBurdges 20:53, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Tag explanation

This article appears to me contrived. The lack of citations (when obviously there are sources) is very peculiar. I would guess the bulk of the article is either a paraphrase from an unspecified source, or the work of a particular person or group that is not identifying themselves.

I'm not expressing a political opinion: I object to Wikipedia being used as a platform for any political agenda. Piano non troppo (talk) 13:05, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Acted for Muslims

The claim discussed in the lead is discussed nowhere else in the article. May I point out that the lead is supposed to summarize the ideas presented in he article, not contain ideas so marginal that they are not even discussed anywhere else in the article. The man is notable for assassinating for Fortuyn. But not notable for harbouring pro-weaker-elements-of-society or pro-Muslim sentiments. For this reason I'm moving it down.VR _talk 00:44, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Why such a short prison sentence?

Anyone care to elaborate in this article why he received such a short sentence for murder? In the USA, typically a murder conviction carries an automatic life sentence. Mohammed Bouyeri, who murdered Theo van Gogh, received life imprisonment. Why not van der Graaf? What's the explanation? Kaihoku (talk) 09:32, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

In most European countries, life sentences are considered inhumane. The Netherlands is one of the few countries with such sentences, and they've only been awarded a handful of times. Only in the insane US would 18 years be considered a "short" sentence. Mohammad was probably given a harsher sentence because of the especially heinous nature of the murder. watermark0n (talk) 03:26, 9 March 2010 (UTC)

I think your emotionally-loaded language here - "insane US" - betrays your dubious sympathies and not to good effect. This is not the rational way to respond to someone. Whether life sentences are humane or not is in the very least open to debate and you're not the sole or final opinion on that issue. It is a complex issue and for you to reduce it to one side being clearly right with your snide dismissal of the United States, not to mention your insinuated generalization of legal opinions in that country, shows your ignorance on the subject. --Biliev1 (talk) 18:59, 24 February 2012 (UTC)biliev1

The explanation might be that no person named Volkert van der Graaf exists at all. Fooling around with an identity of someone who died years before the 6th of may 2002 has nothing to do with any sort of reality. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.61.122.212 (talk) 04:39, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Unintentional humour

"Van der Graaf had irrevocably damaged the democratic political progress of Fortuyn" Apart from the clumsy English (translated from Dutch?) this is such an understatement as to be quite funny. Like saying "Van der Graaf ruined Fortuyn's entire day". Is this really what was said? Anybody have the original Dutch? UrsusMaximus (talk) 20:55, 12 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes its indeed just awkward translation: the prosecutors of Van der Graaf attempted to justify their request for the maximum prison sentence (i.e. life sentence) by arguing that the impact of this murder was not just at the personal level (i.e. Fortuyn and his direct circle of friends and family), but that additionally there was impact to the democratic process at a national level. In other words, they were arguing that Van der Graaf didn't just murder Fortuyn, but that he also murdered Democracy. Nugget (talk) 08:21, 25 September 2010 (UTC)