Appeals court upholds conviction of FvD MP for insulting ministers with Nazi imagery

The Court of Appeal in The Hague has upheld a 450 euros fine for Forum for Democratie MP Pepijn van Houwelingen for insulting two government ministers on X. The case concerns a September 2022 post in which he shared a manipulated image depicting then-ministers Ernst Kuipers and Karien van Gennip alongside a Nazi flag. Both ministers reported the incident to the police.

While the court in 2024 imposed a suspended fine, the Court of Appeal in The Hague ruled on appeal that the 450-euro penalty must be paid in full without suspension. The Member of Parliament had appealed the initial ruling.

The September 2022 tweet contained two images under the caption “The façade and the reality.” One showed the original photo of Ernst Kuipers and Karien van Gennip raising the UN Sustainable Development Goals flag, while the other was a doctored version in which the SDG flag had been replaced with a swastika flag.

After the ministers filed a complaint, Van Houwelingen deleted the original post. He then replaced it with a revised version in which the Nazi flag was replaced with a communist hammer-and-sickle flag, describing this as a “more fitting comparison.”

The court found that Van Houwelingen’s post was defamatory, as it implied that the ministers were Nazis or supported Nazi ideology, thereby damaging their reputation and personal honour. In deciding on the penalty, the court noted the broad reach of the post on X and the fact that it targeted two elected officials.

Van Houwelingen argued that the post was protected under freedom of expression as part of political debate. The Court of Appeal rejected this defence, ruling that the boundaries of acceptable political speech had been exceeded by suggesting an association between the ministers and Nazi ideology, thereby harming their reputation.

The MP can still take the case to the Supreme Court in cassation, but had not confirmed on the day of the ruling whether he intends to do so.