Far-left extremists have claimed responsibility for issuing a death threat to Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders featuring an effigy of the Party for Freedom (PVV) leader hanging by a noose.
Wilders, who is no stranger to having threats made against his life, having been under protection for the past two decades over concerns of Islamist violence, shared an apparent threat from so-called anti-fascists in the Dutch city of Dokkum last week.
Pictures published on the Antifa-linked Indymedia platform appeared to show an effigy of the PVV firebrand with a t-shirt featuring his party’s initials, a blonde wig, and a noose around its neck.
The effigy was displayed outside the chapel to St Boniface at the place where the saint was killed 754 AD by a group of Frisian bandits.
Underneath the effigy, a banner read: “PVV = NSB”, a reference to the World War II era Nazi party in the country, the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (NSB).
“THIS IS HOW FASCISTS END,” the banner added.
In a statement on the far-left anarchist Indymedia platform, the apparent perpetrators said: “On the night of Halloween, Wednesday, October 30 to Thursday, October 31, 2024, anti-fascists in the Frisian Dokkum hung a look-alike of Geert Wilders from a noose.”
“Geert Wilders’ PVV is a modern fascist and undemocratic political party that must be fought root and branch. There is no place for fascists in this world, not in politics and not in society,” the statement added.
Responding to the threat, the PVV leader wrote on X: “Geert Wilders on the rope… Too sick for words.”
The incident, which has so far been largely ignored by the Dutch establishment media, came almost exactly 20 years after Mr Wilders and his wife were taken from their home by police over death threats from radical Islamists in response to his opposition to the Islamification of Europe. Wilders and his wife have been living under protection 24-hours-a-day and in a series of safe houses ever since.
Wilders, the main power player behind the current coalition government in The Netherlands after his party won last year’s elections, commented on the grim anniversary on Monday: “I fight for the freedom of the Dutch every day because I know how bad not having freedom is.”
