Geert Wilders, Dutch Far-Right Leader, Is Convicted of Inciting Discrimination
I do not like this verdict, I like US laws better. Here you have the right to be a bigot, and to say bigoted things; however the consequences come from society, not the force of law.
The reason it’s important to only make it a crime when you incite violence or hateful actions against a group is that most bigotry and prejudice is based on a false and fearful assumed victim hood. In the hater’s twisted worldview the target minority group not the victim, but rather the majority population is the starring lead in the demagogue’s grievance theater (they are taking our jobs, marrying our daughters, raping our cattle, breathing OUR air, or whatever.)
Convicting for spoken bigotry just feeds the assumed martyrdom, as it is in this case where Wilders is gaining in popularity from this case.
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 for remarks he made on March 19, 2014, around the time of municipal elections in The Hague, but it elected not to convict him of inciting hatred and rejected the prosecutors’ request to fine him 5,000 euros, or about $5,300.
Mr. Wilders was found not guilty of hate-speech charges in connection with comments he made about Moroccans in a nationally broadcast TV program filmed at a public market a week earlier, but he was found to have violated laws on inciting discrimination when he led a crowd at a political rally in chanting “fewer, fewer” to the question, “Do you want more or fewer Moroccans in this city and in the Netherlands?”
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