Court: 61 victims in Wilders hate speech trial

There are a total of 61 victims in the hate speech trial against PVV leader Geert Wilders - 56 individuals and 5 organizations, was revealed in the third pre-trial hearing in this case. These victims are demanding compensation and that Wilders retracts his "fewer Moroccans" statements on the PVV's website, according to broadcaster NOS. No further victims can report for this case, the judge said on Friday. The lawsuits revolves around statements Wilders made during campaign visits to The Hague in March 2014. On March 12th of that year the PVV leader paid a visit to Loosduinen and said that The Hague should be “a city with fewer burdens and if possible fewer Moroccans”. And then on the eve of the municipal elections, Wilders asked a cafe full of people whether they wanted more or fewer Moroccans, to which they chanted “fewer, fewer, fewer”. Wilders is facing charges of firstly deliberately insulting a group of people because of their race. Secondly, inciting hatred or discrimination against these people. The Prosecutor is accusing Wilders with four variants of each of these offenses – complicity, commit, incitement and “doing it complicity”. According to RTL Nieuws, eight Moroccan-Dutch are demanding compensation of 500 euros each from the PVV leader. They feel that they were "treated like they were inferior" by Wilders with his "fewer Moroccans" statements. "These are ordinary Moroccan-Dutch who are very worried about what is happening in the Netherlands", their lawyer Goran Slutier said to RTL Nieuws. Today Wilders' lawyer, Geert-Jan Knoops, will make five separate arguments for why the court should drop this case. Wilders himself is also present at the hearing. According to NOS, public interest is not very large - there aren't any protesters outside the court as in previous hearings.