Far-right MP given conditional fine for doctored pic of Ministers with swastika flag
The Hague District Court convicted FvD parliamentarian Pepijn van Houweling of simple insult for posting a doctored image showing then-Minister Ernst Kuipers raising a Nazi flag in the presence of then-Minister Karien van Gennip. The court gave the far-right MP a conditional fine of 450 euros for “inciting intolerance.” He only has to pay the fine if he commits another criminal offense in the next year.
On 23 September 2022, the Ministry of Public Health posted a photo on Twitter, now X, showing Kuipers raising a flag of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in the presence of Van Gennip. Van Houweling posted his doctored image a day later. His post had the original photo on the left and the edit, in which the SDG flag was replaced with a Nazi flag, on the right. It also included the text: “The facade and the reality: #SDGs.”
A day later, Van Houweling said that he did not mean to associate the two Ministers with the Nazi regime and deleted the tweet, replacing it with a new doctored image in which the flag showed the communist symbol instead of a swastika. He said that the tweet was intended to warn about the SDG and fell under his freedom of speech.
The Public Prosecution Service (OM) had recommended that the court fine Van Houweling 450 euros, calling his post “unnecessarily offensive.”
The court ruled that the “tweet clearly establishes a connection between these two former Ministers and the Nazi regime,” which killed over 6 million European Jews. “The suspect has thus cast the Ministers in a bad light with the public and damaged their honor and good name. The tweet is, therefore, insulting in itself.”
“The insulting nature of the tweet is further reinforced by the context in which the suspect posted it,” the court added. Van Houweling posted the doctored pic after critical and often insulting posts in response to the original photo. “The suspect is, of course, not responsible for these messages, but they do form the context in which he posted this tweet and as such gave a reinforcing effect on the insulting nature of the tweet.”
According to the court, Van Houweling “consciously accepted” that the post would imply that the Ministers supported the Nazi regime. The fact that he intended to express criticism of the SDG goals “does not detract from the association that the tweet clearly evokes.”
The court said that politicians are allowed to express criticism, but they also have the responsibility to prevent spreading statements that incite intolerance. “The court rules that the suspect has not taken that responsibility.”
The court imposed the OM’s recommended fine of 450 euros but in a fully conditional form.
Last year, the OM recommended the same fine of 450 euros against Van Houwelingen for the post on X. He objected to that, which is why the matter ended up in court.
