Dutch court convicts anti-Islam PVV party leader Geert Wilders of hate speech for leading a chant against Moroccans.
![Wilders has maintained that he was merely repeating his party's political programme [EPA]](https://i0.wp.com/nasheman.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Geert-Wilders.jpg)
Wilders has maintained that he was merely repeating his party’s political programme [EPA]
by Al Jazeera
A court in the Netherlands has found Geert Wilders, an anti-Islam politician, guilty of hate speech for leading a chant against Moroccans at a 2014 campaign rally.
Wilders was convicted of discrimination and hate speech, but sentenced to no punishment on Friday for comments he made at a March 2014 local government election rally in The Hague.
When he asked supporters whether they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands”, the crowd shouted back “Fewer! Fewer!” and a smiling Wilders answered: “We’re going to organise that.”
Wilders boycotted most of the trial, but in closing remarks on November 23 told judges his comments were obviously not intended as a call to genocide – but rather a reference to his official party platform.
Prosecutors, who rejected Wilders’ assertions that the trial was politically motivated and an unfair attempt to limit his right to free speech, had asked that a fine of 5,000 euros, but no prison sentence, be imposed.
Dutch TV channel RTL news reported that Wilders would appeal against the conviction.
Wilders, who is leading in several polls for the March elections, said he was not guilty of any wrongdoing.
“Every verdict, acquittal, or conviction will de facto change nothing,” he said in an interview with De Telegraaf published on Friday.
“I will continue to speak the truth regardless, including about the Moroccan problem, and no judge, politician or terrorist will stop me.”
A previous attempt to prosecute Wilders for anti-Islam remarks, such as likening the religion to Nazism and calling for a ban on the Quran, ended in acquittal in 2011.
That process was widely seen as strengthening his reputation as a defender of freedom of speech and increased his popularity.
Al Jazeera’s Neave Barker, reporting from Schipol, said a conviction like this could work in Wilders’ favour.
“This could drum up support for some of the issues he is keen to champion: euro-scepticism, clamping down on migrants,” Barker said. “But what he is convinced he will continue to do is beat the nationalist drum, so how he plays this conviction is really yet to be seen.”
Wilders’ far-right Freedom Party (PVV) is leading in the polls ahead of a crunch vote on March 15 with the latest numbers putting the PVV at 34 seats in the 150-seat lower house of Dutch parliament, some 10 seats ahead of his nearest rival, Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals.
