Wilders' trial 'extremely complicated,' says expert

by SAMUEL DOVERI VESTERBYE
Hürriyet Daily News
April 27, 2011

https://www.legal-project.org/1354/wilders-trial-extremely-complicated-says-expert

Excerpt:

A controversial case against far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders on alleged hate speech crimes is reopening in the Netherlands, but the country's courts are being hamstrung by a lack of familiarity with such cases, according to experts.

"We don't really have a tradition of convicting people for these kinds of things, it's a rare occasion and the courts have limited experience in handling it," Thierry Baudet, an academic at Leiden University, recently told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review.

The scandal-ridden trial against Wilders, who faces charges of hate speech and discrimination, resumed last Wednesday after the process was put on hold in October 2010.

The controversial politician from the Freedom Party, or PVV, is accused of propagating hate speech, related to over 50 derogatory comments made against Islam between 2007 and 2008. The reopening came after a six-month halt to the juridical process after a court of appeal ruled that the board of judges in charge of the process were biased against Wilders.

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