Wilders, an extreme nationalist obsessed with the supposed threat to Dutch identity from Islam, promises to shut the nation’s borders to Muslim immigrants, ban the Quran, close all mosques and hold a referendum on leaving the European Union if he becomes prime minister.
He denounced the decision by a three-judge panel, but Wilders appears to have benefitted from the trial. His Party for Freedom, known by the Dutch acronym PVV, currently leads in polls ahead of a general election in March, thanks in part to a surge in support during his trial.
Polls show that the Party for Freedom could end up with the most seats in the new Tweede Kamer, the Dutch parliament, with less than a quarter of the vote, since support is split among more than 10 parties.
From: Conviction for Racist Speech Could Help Make Geert Wilders Dutch Prime Minister
:Sigh: Yes, any publicity is good, and any public attempt by “the man” to shut you down lets you capture the protest vote.Report
Or maybe some people decided the court was full of BS. Saying, he is guilty of hate speech for calling for fewer Moroccans and then fining him just seems like BS.
Thanks to Will for posting this. I saw this in NY Times and thought it to be of interest.Report
Perhaps. Whatever the details we’re looking at some flavor of the Streisand effect here, one assumes the opposite of what the court intended.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effectReport
Hate speech laws inevitably turn cranks and imbeciles into martyrs and folk heroes who speak truth to power.Report
Netherlands election: 15 March 2017
French election: 23 April 2017
The main thing that I think is going to protect us is that Europe, once again, will explode before we can.Report
Hate speech is an incredibly hard concept to define. There is a lot of obvious hate speech filled with racial slurs. Sometimes distinguishing between vigorous out group criticism and hate speech is not easy. Jews are probably going to find anti-Semitism in a lot of criticism of Israel that non-Jews are going to see as legitimate criticism. Even ostensibly anti-Zionist Jews can find some of the more vigorous criticism of Israel disturbing. Muslims are likely to see Wilders speech as racist rather than vigorous out-group criticism.
If hate speech is going to be a useful topic than their needs to be a way to to distinguish vigorous outside group criticism and hate speech on more than a case by case basis. Calling any outside group criticism racist or hateful doesn’t seem to be that useful.Report