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Racist politician Wilders will be charged

RACIST Dutch politician Geert Wilders will be prosecuted for discrimination and inciting hatred against Moroccans during March election campaigning, prosecutors said today.

The charges stem from an incident in The Hague, when Mr Wilders led a nationally broadcast anti-Moroccan chant in a cafe prompting 6,400 complaints to the police.

Mr Wilders asked supporters if they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in their city, triggering the chant: “Fewer, fewer, fewer.” A smiling Mr Wilders responded: “We’ll take care of that.”

In a later TV interview, he referred to “Moroccan scum.”

The prosecutors said yesterday that Mr Wilders, whose Party for Freedom (PVV) tops the opinion polls in the Netherlands, will face charges of “insulting a specific group based on race and inciting discrimination and hatred.”

Politicians may go far in their comments under the right to free speech, the prosecutors warned, but “that freedom is limited by the prohibition of discrimination.”

The furore led to senior members of Mr Wilders’s Party for Freedom resigning, but the arrogant racist appeared unrepentant yesterday, insisting that he had only spoken the truth.

“It is a travesty that I have to defend myself in court for this. I said what millions of people think and believe,” he claimed. 

“The public prosecutors should be going after jihadis instead of me. 

“The PVV is the largest party in the polls and the elite apparently doesn’t like it.”

Prosecutors had initially appeared reluctant to press charges after losing a similar trial against Mr Wilders in 2007.

But legal experts have argued they have a stronger case this time around because he specifically targeted Moroccans, rather than the religion of Islam.

Mr Wilders’s aggressively anti-Islamist views have made him the target of death threats and he lives under 24-hour police protection.

But he refused to respond to questioning when he was summoned by police to discuss the incident earlier this month.

He has said that he expects prosecutors to drop the charges. 

It is not yet known when the case will go to court.

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