After studying law at the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, he founded a company with his cousin, but left in 2015 to start his own law practice. He won a seat in the Amsterdam
municipal council three years later as a member of the political party
Christian Union.
Early life and education
Ceder was born on 20 October 1989 in the Dutch capital Amsterdam to a
Surinamese father and a
Ghanaian mother.[4][5] He has a brother, a half-brother, and a half-sister, and he grew up in the
Zuidoost neighborhood
Bijlmermeer.[6][7] Ceder's parents split up when he was in elementary school, and he was subsequently raised by his mother.[3] He attended the secondary school Sint-Nicolaaslyceum at
gymnasium level.[8] He studied law at the
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam starting at age seventeen and earned his
Master of Laws degree in 2013.[9][10] While studying, he had an internship at the
Christian Union for nine months.[7] Before, he had been a member of the
Labour Party for a short period.[11]
Legal career
In January 2014, Ceder and his cousin Calvin Ceder founded a company providing legal advice to people targeted by
debt collectors called Anti-Incasso.[4][12] Besides, he worked as spokesperson for Stichting ConTel, a consumer organization helping
telecom users.[13]
Ceder left Anti-Incasso to start his own solo law practice in March 2015 called Ceder Advocatuur, that is focussed on defending people in debt.[14][15] He had been admitted to the bar the month before.[8] In 2018, business magazine Forbes placed him on their European
30 Under 30 in Law & Policy list.[16] The following year, he successfully helped a woman get her
aborted child registered in the Dutch
civil registry shortly after a law was passed that makes this possible after a miscarriage. The woman, who later came to regret the abortion, told her story in an episode of the
EO television program NieuwLicht.[17] Ceder started taking on less cases in 2019 because of his position as municipal councilor.[18] He represented over 15 parents who were caught up in the
childcare benefits scandal.[19]
Ceder first ran for political office in the
2014 municipal election. He was in third place on the
Christian Union's
party list in Amsterdam, but his party did not win any seats in the municipal council.[21] In the
2015 provincial elections, Ceder was placed second on the shared list of the Christian Union and the
Reformed Political Party in
North Holland.[22] He was not elected, as his party won one seat, but he was appointed duo-commissielid, meaning that he could not vote but could participate in committee meetings.[5]
Ceder ran again for Amsterdam municipal councilor in the
March 2018 election, this time being the party's lijsttrekker. The Christian Union won a single seat, marking the first time the party had been part of the Amsterdam council.[23] He was sworn in on 29 March and was the youngest member of the council.[24][25] Due to his workload as councilman, Ceder left the
States of North Holland a few months later.[26] In 2019, he was on the lists for the
provincial election (place 9) and the
European Parliament election (place 29), but he was not elected.[27][28] In the municipal council, Ceder has advocated providing more
public services to undocumented minors and bringing an end to
deportations of children who have been living in the Netherlands for over five years.[29][30] He has also proposed ending
window prostitution in the city and creating a
homeless shelter that is opened 24 hours a day.[31][32]
He ran for member of parliament (MP) during the
2017 general election, being placed seventh on the party list.[5] His party won five seats, and Ceder received 8,276
preferential votes – not enough to be elected.[34] When MP
Stieneke van der Graaf went on maternity leave in March 2019 and Ceder was asked to temporarily fill her seat, he declined, saying he wanted to continue his work as council member.[35] He again appeared on the Christian Union's party list for the
2021 election as number four.[36] During the
anti-abortion Week of Life, he called for a reevaluation of the Dutch 24-week limit for legal abortions, arguing that some fetuses are
viable before that time.[37] Ceder also defended the five-day waiting period for abortions, also in case of rape, in an interview during the campaign.[38] He was elected, having received 10,318
preference votes, and was sworn in as member of parliament on 31 March 2021.[39] Ceder left the municipal council that same day.[1] In the House, he is on the Committees for Digital Affairs, for Foreign Affairs, for Foreign Trade and Development Cooperation, for the Interior, for Kingdom Relations, and for Social Affairs and Employment, and he serves as his party's spokesperson for asylum, immigration, social affairs, employment, youth, foreign affairs, digital affairs, kingdom relations, history of slavery, and anti-discrimination.[40][41]
A
motion by Ceder was carried by the House in July 2021 in which he called for an independent investigation into the Netherlands' history of slavery. The results were finally published in the report State and Slavery.[42] Furthermore, Ceder was critical of the cabinet for a lack of central leadership during the
evacuations of Afghanistan following the
fall of Kabul in August 2021.[43] When the Dutch asylum system was suffering from capacity problems and refugees had to sleep outside at the Dutch application center in
Ter Apel the following year, Ceder represented his party in negotiations among the
coalition parties. The resulting asylum deal included additional funding for accommodation as well as the postponement of family reunions. Ceder defended the deal together with party leader
Gert-Jan Segers during an extra party congress, saying that he regretted the latter compromise but that the deal on the whole was a step forward.[44] Ceder also focused on municipal welfare, working on a bill to allow municipalities to be more lenient with reimbursements by recipients in case of mistakes.[45] Furthermore, he presented a plan in 2023 to reform debt collection. He railed against the amount of money made by the industry and decried
buy now, pay later services that make part of their profit through late payments. Ceder proposed that the creditor should keep responsibility over the debt collection to prevent malpractices by owners of resold debt, and he wanted to mandate collectors to investigate whether the debtor could pay the debt.[46][47]
Ceder was an advocate of a ban of social media platform
TikTok, which was especially popular amongst children. Its updated privacy policy had raised fears that it would allow the Chinese government to access user data.[48]
Personal life
Ceder was a resident of the Amsterdam borough
Zuidoost as of 2018, and he got married in January 2023.[49][50] He is a member of the Safe Haven Church, which formerly belonged to the
Pentecostalist denomination
Victory Outreach, and played a
disciple in the 2018 edition of The Passion, that was held in his hometown.[51][52] In his twenties, he danced and acted in plays.[49] He also performs as a
DJ.[5]
^
abCeder, Don (14 February 2017). "Andere stem" [Different voice]. De Volkskrant (Interview) (in Dutch). Interviewed by Robert Vuijsje.
^
abCeder, Don.
"Don Ceder, Advocaat" [Don Ceder, Lawyer]. Youth Case (Interview) (in Dutch). Archived from
the original on 21 October 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
^Meershoek, Patrick (26 September 2014). "Incasso is soms puur wildwest" [Debt collection is sometimes like the Wild West]. Het Parool (in Dutch). p. 7.
^"Het jonge talent van 2019" [The young talent of 2019]. Advocatie Magazine (in Dutch). March 2019. Archived from
the original on 23 October 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2020.
^Brouwer, Evert (19 February 2021).
"Defensie en de Tweede Kamerverkiezingen" [Defense and the general election]. Defensiekrant (in Dutch). No. 6. Retrieved 21 March 2021.
^Bol, Stephan (10 March 2014).
"Stemlokaal: de mooiste posters" [Polling station: the prettiest posters]. Nederlands Dagblad (in Dutch). Retrieved 17 October 2020.
^Meershoek, Patrick (2 December 2014). "Noord-Holland = Den Haag" [North Holland = The Hague]. Het Parool (in Dutch). p. 4.
^
abCeder, Don (9 December 2018).
"Don Ceder: 'Levendigheid is uniek voor Zuidoost'" [Don Ceder: 'Vibrancy is unique to Zuidoost']. Het Parool (Interview) (in Dutch). Interviewed by Misha Melita. Retrieved 19 October 2020.
^Ceder, Don [@donceder] (9 January 2023).
"#newlyweds💍🤍✨". Retrieved 4 February 2023 – via
Instagram.