Political leader to testify against racial abuse suspects in court
A total of 22 suspects will appear in the court in Amsterdam this week for threatening politician Sylvana Simons. The first six cases will appear on Wednesday, the other 16 on Thursday. Simons intends to attend the trial, Het Parool reports.
The suspects are 21 men and one women. The youngest suspect is a 15-year-old boy from Veendam who posted a threat on Instagram. Due to his age, his trial will be held behind closed doors. The other suspects are all adults, the oldest of which is 67-years-old, from all over the country.
According to Simons, she received some 40 thousand threats. On Tuesday she told Radio 1 that she will be at the trials. "I would like to see them because if you are threatened online, you do not know where the threat comes from. It can literally be anyone", she said. "Was it a neighbor or someone you ran into on the street and cheerfully greeted? I want to see that they are just people, and for them to see that I am a human being, and not a hollow symbol of whom you can rampantly say what you want."
Simons also intends to use her chance to speak in court. "I will seize the moment to remind these people that what they do has consequences, not only for me but for many people. And in fact also for our society."
