Geert Wilders Found Guilty of Inciting Discrimination

Geert Wilders, the leader of the far-right Dutch Freedom Party, was found guilty Friday of inciting discrimination with comments he made about Moroccan immigrants, but no penalty was imposed. During a March 2014 speech in The Hague, the infamously Islamophobic politician asked attendees of his party’s rally whether they wanted “more or fewer Moroccans” in the Netherlands, to which the crowd responded with the chant, “fewer, fewer, fewer.” Wilders replied that he would “take care of that,” and several thousand complaints were filed with the country’s public prosecutor as a result. Wilders was also found guilty of inciting hate, but presiding judge Hendrik Steenhuis decided, “The guilty verdict was punishment enough,” and opted to impose no fines on Wilders, who was not present at the sentencing.