15 October 2024
167 days ago today, on 30 April, crypto pioneer and early BTC investor Roger Ver, an EU-citizen, was arrested in Spain at the request of the US government on the basis of vague suspicions and supposedly incomplete tax return forms from decades ago.
The absurd grounds of the prosecution, and the even more outrageous extradition request, is reminiscent of other political trials undertaken - or supported - by the American empire against its critics, such as Andrew Tate, John McAfee, Ross Ulbricht, Pavel Durov, Julian Assange and Kim Dotcom.
It is time for European nations to start pushing back and resisting such American legal terror. Today, I requested the Dutch Prime Minister to address the issue at the European Council meeting that will take place in the coming days in Brussels and to make representations to the Spanish government not to extradite Roger.
My motion will be put to a vote later tonight.
Thierry Baudet
Leader of FVD and Member of Parliament of the Netherlands
Thierry Henri Philippe Baudet (born 28 January 1983) is a Dutch politician, academic and author. He is the founder and leader of Forum for Democracy (FVD), and has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2017. He also serves as the party’s parliamentary leader.
Baudet was born in Heemstede into a family of partial Walloon ancestry. His forefather Pierre Joseph Baudet immigrated to the Batavian Republic in 1795 when his home in Hainaut was annexed by the French Republic, fleeing from conscription into the French Army. Baudet’s great-great-grandmother Ernestine van Heemskerck was born in the Dutch East Indies and was of partly Indonesian parentage. Baudet attended the Haarlem gymnasium, i.e. a high school with compulsory Latin and Ancient Greek. His first degree, from the University of Amsterdam, was in history, and from 2007 to 2012 he was a lecturer at Leiden University, where in 2012 he graduated as a Doctor of Philosophy with a thesis on national identity, European identity, and multiculturalism. This was co-directed by the philosopher Roger Scruton and was published in Dutch as The Assault on the Nation-State. An English translation was also published, called The Significance of Borders.
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