Sam van Rooy

Sam van Rooy (born 27 May 1985) is a Belgian-Flemish politician for Vlaams Belang, author, blogger and former professional cyclist.

Sam van Rooy in the Flemish Parliament

Biography

Van Rooy was born in Antwerp in 1985. He is the son of Flemish writer Wim van Rooy. He graduated with a degree in engineering from the University of Antwerp and was also a professional cyclist from 2001 to 2006 and raced with the Flemish youth team.[1][2]

In 2011 Van Rooy lived and worked in the Netherlands as a policy director for Geert Wilders and the Party for Freedom party, before Wilders dismissed him from the party over a controversial video Van Rooy had published online. In the video, Van Rooy followed several women wearing burqas around in a shopping centre, labelling them "scum". He responded that "What nonsense that you can't call people scum," "people who reject Western values in favor of a racist, fascist and inhumane system like Sharia are just scum, just like Nazis and other fascists."[3] Van Rooy joined Vlaams Belang in 2012 and became a press spokesman for the party. In 2012 he participated in the international counter-jihad conference in Brussels, billed as the "International Conference for Free Speech & Human Rights".[4][5] In 2019, he was elected as a councilor in Antwerp and succeeded Filip Dewinter as the Vlaams Belang group leader in the Antwerp city council. The same year he was also elected to the Flemish Parliament.[6] He is also a publicist and writer on the Flemish blog site Doorbraak.

Works
  • 2010 - Islam. Critical essays on a political religion (ASP Editions, together with Wim van Rooy)
  • 2012 - Europe staggers. The kidnapping of Europe by the EU (Van Halewyck, together with Wim van Rooy and Remi Hauman)
  • 2016 - Why do they hate us anyway? (The Blue Tiger, together with Frits Bosch, Paul Cliteur and Wim van Rooy, among others)
  • 2018 - So for freedom against Islamization (Breakthrough)

References
  1. Fiche Sam van Rooy op dewielersite.be.
  2. "www.samvanrooy.be".
  3. Partij Wilders zet Vlaamse medewerker op non-actief na internetfilmpje met boerka, Het Laatste Nieuws, 16 juli 2011.
  4. "Brussels 2012 Agenda". International Civil Liberties Alliance. 9 July 2012.
  5. Lazaridis, Gabriella; Campani, Giovanna (2016). Understanding the Populist Shift: Othering in a Europe in Crisis. Routledge. p. 91. ISBN 9781317326052.
  6. Filip Dewinter geeft na 26 jaar scepter door aan Sam van Rooy, Het Laatste Nieuws, 9 mei 2019.
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