Human Rights Have Snowballed Into Absurdity
7th November 2025
Is polygamy a human right? This is the question currently being pondered by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in Strasbourg. The case has been brought by a Yemeni refugee, Khaled Al-Anesi, a lawyer who was granted asylum in the Netherlands following the Arab Spring. He arrived in the country with his first wife and their eight children, deciding not to request reunification with his second and third wives, as polygamy is illegal under Dutch law. He did, however, demand that the five children he had with his other wives join him in the Netherlands. At this point, the Dutch government refused, noting that the children were perfectly safe with their mothers in Turkey, where they enjoyed refugee status.