Interior Minister won't be prosecuted for slander

The Public Prosecutor will not prosecute Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs for slander and defamation. FvD leader Thierry Baudet pressed charges against the Minister last month, but the Public Prosecutor determined that she committed no criminal offenses, the Prosecutor announced on Thursday.

During a lecture in Nijmegen early last month, Ollongren said that populism threatens the "core values of democracy" and that the FvD goes further in this than the PVV ever did. "The new split off from populism goes further where [PVV leader Geert] Wilders stops. Baudet's party seems to be obsessed with one of the few taboos that I as a progressive liberal attach value to: talking about races in the political debate."

She also denounced Baudet for not distancing himself from statements previously made by Yernaz Ramataursing, number two on the FvD candidate list for the municipal elections in Amsterdam. In 2016 Ramataursing said that Dutch with dark skin are less intelligent than other races.

Baudet accused Ollongren of demonizing a representative of the people and filed charges of defamation and slander against her.

The Prosecutor investigated and concluded that Baudet derived a certain suggestion from Ollongren's statements. "This suggestion, which may or may not exist, is not however clearly defined behavior and therefor does not constitute defamation or slander", the Prosecutor said.

Ollongren denouncing Baudet for not distancing himself from Ramataursing's statements, also "does not yield a specific fact as is referred to by defamation", the Prosecutor said. "If it were assumed that the statements did produce a specific fact, then the context in which the statements were made, the public debate, would remove its defamatory character."