The highest appeals court in the Netherlands has ruled that the case against a PVV supporter for public hate speech against Muslims must be retried.

Acquitted in Amsterdam

The accused had been acquitted of charges of insulting Muslims in the documentary "Wilders, the movie." But the High Council of the Netherlands, the final court of appeal, ruled on 10 April that the lower court had not properly assessed the case and offered insufficient reasoning for its decision.

The PVV supporter made his statements in a documentary about Geert Wilders, which was broadcast in 2010. He was presented in the documentary as a supporter of Wilders. Among other things, he spoke about Arabs as "butt buddies" who also "fuck little boys" because "that's normal in their culture."

The Court of Appeal of Amsterdam acquitted the man of group insult. The court ruled that the contested statements were, according to their assessment, absolutely insulting to Muslims. It then ruled that these statements had been made in the context of public debate and that they were not unnecessarily abuse because they did not incite hatred, violence, discrimination or intolerance. The Public Prosecution Service did not agree with the acquittal and appealed the decision to the High Council.

Part of public debate?

The High Council said that when assessing whether a statement is offensive in criminal law, the wording of that statement and the context in which the statement was made must be taken into account. Furthermore, it must be evaluated, among other things, whether the statement can contribute to the public debate and whether the statement is not unnecessarily abusive.

The High Council held that the assessment framework used by the Amsterdam court, which only looked at whether the statements of the suspect, who is not regarded as a politician, incite hatred, violence, discrimination or intolerance, did not meet this standard. In addition, the Amsterdam court did not sufficiently explain why the statements of the accused are not unnecessarily abuse in view of their wording.

The High Council has therefore referred the case back to the Court of Appeal of Amsterdam for a new judgment.