Geert Wilders, leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), has said that the outcome of his “hate speech” trial could show signs of tyranny forming in the Dutch establishment.
The trial of Geert Wilders is close to reaching a conclusion and it appears the populist Dutch politician may be facing a €5,000 fine for remarks he made about Moroccans in the Netherlands at a speech in 2014.
In a video released on YouTube Thursday, he railed against the establishment claiming that the request by the prosecutor to fine him was showing a slide into tyranny by the Dutch establishment and their war on freedom of speech.
“Speaking about one of the biggest problems in our country, the problem with Moroccans, is now punishable according to the elite,” he said adding, “we are slowly but surely losing our freedom of speech.”
Mr. Wilders was charged with hate speech on the accusation that he had committed an act of overt racism. The dutch PVV leader responded to the charges saying, “suddenly Moroccans have become a race. So if you say something about Moroccans you are suddenly a racist in the Netherlands,” adding that “it’s utter madness. Only meant to shut you and me up.”
Wilders claimed that the trial was evidence of the eroding of the personal freedoms of the Dutch people, saying that the country was “at risk of becoming a dictatorship.” Comparing the crackdown on free speech to that of the presidency of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan,who has jailed opposition media and politicians in Turkey, he said that the differences between the two countries were getting smaller and smaller.
Wilders stated the “politically correct elite” should not be allowed to censor speech they do not like. He said that it was his duty as a political leader to fight against the elites because “looking away and remaining silent is not an option.”
Without a means to talk about mass migration in the Netherlands, Wilders warns that the problems “will only grow bigger,” and the only people left in power will be a “dictatorship of cowardly politicians.”
The trial of Mr. Wilders is set to reach a verdict later in November. While the penalty by law could be a larger fine or a two-year prison sentence, the PVV leader has expressed his outrage at the trial, saying he wouldn’t attend what he considered to be a waste of his time.
He stated be chose instead to focus on his parliamentary work ahead of the Dutch elections in the spring in which he is projected to be placed either first, or a very close second, on his anti-Islamisation platform.
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