Wilders, the leader of the Party for Freedom [Partij voor de Vrijheid, PVV] spoke in Vienna, Austria in March 2015, on the subject of Islam. A Muslim leader immediately filed a complaint, and the Austrian public prosecutor began a criminal investigation against Wilders for “incitement” or Verhetzung.
The speech in Vienna had caused such consternation, that the Austrian authorities asked the Dutch Prosecutor too, to investigate Wilders for “hate speech”, but his statements are not punishable by Dutch law, NU.nl reported.
According to the Dutch Prosecutor, insulting a religion or religious community is not a punishable offense in the Netherlands, unlike in Austria. “Only if a statement focuses on a group that is characterized by a belief, can that statement be punished”, the Prosecutor explained, according to NU.nl.
In his speech Wilders insulted Islam the religion, not Muslims the people, according to the prosecutor. “In Dutch law this falls under religious critique and does not apply as an insult to a population group.”
Wilders called Islam an “ideology of war and hatred” and added that “Islam calls on people to be terrorists. The Quran leaves no doubt about it.”
He compared the Quran to Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf and called for the holy book to be banned.
Earlier this year it was decided to transfer the matter to the Netherlands, Austrian spokesperson Nina Bussek told AD.nl news. “We decided not to prosecute him here, but to transfer the case to our Dutch colleagues out of practical considerations,” Bussek said. This was confirmed by the Public Prosecutor in The Hague. “We have received a legal aid request and are studying it now,” spokesperson Vincent Veenman said at the time.
Several Austrian politicians have already been given conditional sentences for Verhetzung in Vienna. For example, in 2015, a German Pegida leader was given a four-month suspended sentence. He had said that “every Muslim is a potential terrorist”.
In 2015 the PVV leader spoke at the invitation of its Austrian sister party, the FPÖ. A day later the Austrian Muslim leader Tarafa Baghajati filed the complaint. “Wilders gave the impression that all Muslims are here to wage war against Europeans,” Baghajati said. “To me, it recalled the Nazi rhetoric of the 1930s in every aspect.”