THE HAGUE, 30/05/09 - Journalist Joanie de Rijcke stressed Friday she does feel angry with the Taliban fighter who raped her in Afghanistan. She was reacting to Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders, who in the Lower House called her alleged Stockholm syndrome symbolic of the leftwing elite in the Netherlands.

The PVV leader succeeded for the umpteenth time in attracting all the media attention for a debate to himself during Accountability Day - the cabinet defending its policy of the past year - by appropriating the rape of De Rijke and her reaction to this as a metaphor for the way in which many Dutch politicians and journalists look at Islam. "This entire elite suffers from the Stockholm syndrome" - developing sympathy for one's kidnappers - according to the MP. "They are blinded by their own ideology of multiculturalism."

De Rijcke, 43, was kidnapped in November in the town of Sarubi, some 50 kilometres from Kabul. She was kept prisoner for six days and raped repeatedly by a Taliban leader, Ghazi Gul. But she wrote in a book; "I do not want to portray the Taliban as monsters, nor am I angry with Ghazi Gul. After all, he allowed me to live."

De Rijcke now sounds a different note. "I am indeed very angry with the perpetrators. I am furious with my abductors and rapists. All the things Wilders is saying are completely wrong," said De Rijcke in Algemeen Dagblad Friday. "It is very, very painful. I am trying to recover from my trauma."

Wilders on Thursday had termed the journalist's reaction a typical example of the moral decline of the elite in the Netherlands. Virtually all parties and particularly leftwing Green leader (GroenLinks) Femke Halsema furiously rejected Wilders' metaphor. Premier Jan Peter Balkenende also called the comparison "extremely painful and tasteless."

De Rijcke's employers are the Belgian men's magazine P-Magazine and publisher Think Media Magazines. They paid a ransom of 100,000 euros for her release.