A few days ago, Wilders was convicted of hate speech by a court for agreeing with a crowd of supporters that “fewer” Moroccans would be an advantageous policy and one he would pursue.
Here’s his YouTube response to the conviction:
GEERT WILDERS: Dear friends, I still cannot believe it, but I have just been convicted. Because I asked a question about Moroccans. While the day before yesterday, scores of Moroccan asylum-seekers terrorized buses in Emmen and did not even had to pay a fine, a politician who asks a question about fewer Moroccans is sentenced. (Transcript continues)It should be noted that the recent trial was third time Wilders had been brought before a court on “hate speech” charges. I wrote about the first trial in 2010, and this legal persecution of a conservative politician for free speech is getting old. Perhaps the judges will chill now that they have their desired scalp. Or maybe not.
Below, Geert Wilders appeared at his first free speech trial in 2010.
Incidentally, the Netherlands is one of the more densely populated nations on earth (#30 out of 241), so calling for less or zero immigration generally is entirely sensible.
Finally, the trend in Europe has been to criminalize any criticism of Islam — not the way free nations should behave.
Dutch Populist Leader Wilders Rises in Polls after Conviction, Breitbart London, December 12, 2016(AFP) – The party of populist anti-Islam Dutch MP Geert Wilders has risen strongly in the polls since the lawmaker was tried and convicted of discrimination, according to a survey published Sunday.
If legislative elections due next March were held this week, Wilders’ Freedom Party (PVV) would pick up 36 out of 150 seats in the lower house of parliament, making it the biggest single political group, it found.
Before the trial began on October 31, the PVV was credited with 27 seats.
During the trial, but before his conviction on Friday, its estimated share rose to 34 seats. It currently has 12 lawmakers.
The new poll data comes from a weekly monitoring by the Maurice de Hond Institute.
It found that Prime Minister Mark Rutte’s Liberals would place second with 23 seats, against 40 today, and his junior coalition partners, the Labour Party (PvdA), would gain 10 seats, compared with 35 today.
Wilders was found guilty of discrimination against Moroccans but acquitted of hate speech over remarks he made at an election rally in March 2014.
He had asked supporters whether they wanted “fewer or more Moroccans in your city and in the Netherlands.” When the crowd shouted back “Fewer! Fewer!” a smiling Wilders answered: “We’re going to organise that.”
Wilders, 53, largely boycotted the trial, which he denounced as a political attempt to gag him.
The judges were strongly critical of Wilders’ “inflammatory” remarks at the rally but decided not to impose any sentence or fine.
The outcome of the Dutch vote will be keenly watched given the anti-EU outcome of Britain’s Brexit referendum and the November election of populist Donald Trump as the next US president.
Wilders has among other things vowed to confiscate Korans, close mosques and Islamic schools, shut the borders and ban migrants from Islamic countries.
