Far Right Politician Convicted of Inciting Discrimination

[bigtree]

AMSTERDAM — Geert Wilders, the far-right politician who is seen as a likely contender to become prime minister when Dutch voters go to the polls next year, was convicted on Friday of inciting discrimination and of insulting a group for saying that the Netherlands would be safer with fewer Moroccans.

The three-member judiciary panel found that Mr. Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom, had violated Dutch law with his remarks on March 19, 2014, but it elected not to convict him of inciting hatred, and it imposed no punishment, rejecting the prosecutors’ request to fine him 5,000 euros, or about $5,300.

Mr. Wilders was found to have violated laws on inciting discrimination and group offense when he led a crowd at a political rally around the time of municipal elections in The Hague in chanting “fewer, fewer” to the question, “Do you want more or fewer Moroccans in this city and in the Netherlands?”

___ In their ruling, the judges said that Mr. Wilders’s comments at the rally had contributed to the further polarization of Dutch society by using “nationality as an ethnic designation” and that mutual respect was imperative in the “pluralistic” Netherlands.


read: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/world/europe/geert-wilders-netherlands-trial.html?smid=pl-share

[FarCenter]

1. The only real result seems to have been publicity for Mr. Wilders

The effect of the verdict on Mr. Wilders and on his party’s chances when the Dutch elections are held in March is unclear, but the trial seems to have improved his party’s standing, rather than diminishing it, among voters.