Nadine Osman
Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders is facing a joint criminal complaint from fourteen Muslim organisations over a campaign image they say incites hatred and discrimination against Muslims.
The complaint, submitted on August 11 by lawyers Adem Çatbaş and Harun Raza, centres on an image Wilders posted to X on August 4.
It shows a split portrait of a woman: one side young, blonde, and wearing make-up with the initials of Wilders’s Party for Freedom (PVV); the other side older, scowling, and wearing a headscarf with the initials of the Social Democrats (PvdA). Above it, the caption reads: “You decide 29/10”, a reference to the upcoming general election.
The groups allege the image was designed to “insult a group, incite hatred, discrimination and violence, and provoke hostility and social unrest.” Critics say it casts the blonde woman as “good” and the veiled woman as “bad”, a depiction Muslim Rights Watch likened to Nazi propaganda portraying Jews as “inhuman, threatening and unwanted.”
The post drew more than 2,500 complaints to the national anti-discrimination centre Discriminatie.nl by August 7 — an unusually high number for a single incident. A spokesperson said it was “a clear signal from society” and condemned the image for fuelling “a story of us versus them” that undermines social cohesion.
The controversy comes amid a heated election campaign. Wilders pulled the PVV out of the governing coalition in June over asylum policy disputes, triggering snap elections set for October 29. Polls suggest a tight race between the PVV and a Labour-GreenLeft alliance.
Wilders has a history of inflammatory remarks about Islam, including calls to ban the Qur’an and close mosques. In 2016, he was convicted of discrimination over comments about Moroccans, a ruling upheld by the Dutch supreme court.
Dutch prosecutors will now decide whether the image crosses the legal threshold for hate speech. The case could set an important precedent ahead of an election dominated by debates over national identity and immigration.
Photo: Far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders. (Credit: heute.at/CC)
