D66 put forward motion to scrap the specific crime of insulting the monarch

DutchNews, April 22, 2016

Photo: Sisyfus via Wikimedia 

The Liberal democratic party D66 is submitting a motion to parliament on Friday which will scrap the offence of ‘lèse-majesté’, which means the crime of ‘offending the dignity of the monarch’, from the statue books. 

The Netherlands is one of the few country’s in Europe to have such a crime, for which the maximum sentence is five years in jail. 

D66 parliamentarian Kees Verhoeven says the party opposes the higher sentences which the courts can impose on people who insult the king. ‘It should not matter if a king or an ordinary citizen feels insulted,’ he said. ‘Both should be able to decide if they want to take legal action using the same criminal law.’ 

The government has already said it plans to scrap the law making it a criminal offence to insult the head of a friendly state but will not act on lèse-majesté. The decision was taken in the wake of Turkey’s plans to prosecute a German comedian for reciting an insulting poem about president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. 

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Verhoeven says this does not go far enough. ‘We are not in favour of issuing insults, but the sentences are far too high,’ he told the Volkskrant. ‘If you insult the king, you can lose your right to vote. And that is not appropriate in this day and age.’ 

D66 can count on the support of Labour, the Socialist party and the left-wing greens of GroenLinks, the Volkskrant says. The three Christian parties in parliament have all said they will not accept the changes. The ruling VVD and the anti-Islam PVV have not yet reached a decision. 

Last year an anti-monarchy campaigner faced legal action for insulting the Dutch royal family at a rally in Amsterdam in 2014. Abulkasim Al-Jaberi was arrested at a demonstration against Zwarte Piet for shouting ‘fuck the king, fuck the queen and fuck the monarchy’. 

The case was later dropped after officials decided the statement was not a crime because it was made ‘within the public debate’.

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Dutch MPs want to scrap law banning insults to a ‘friendly head of state’