More reports against Willem Engel than against Geert Wilders | Inland

Dikkeboom believes that Engel is guilty of incitement, spreading medical disinformation, endangering public health and all this even with a terrorist intent. The report covers a series of incendiary statements from the Virus Truth leader. According to Dikkeboom, these sow fear, which allowed riots such as last weekend to flare up.

Willem Engel thinks that is nonsense. “He has put a lot of work into it,” he says about Dikkeboom’s website where declarants can go. “But it is slander and slander, my portrait rights are also being violated. But this is also a scam as far as I’m concerned. It puts people on the wrong track, you tempt people to make a false report. I like to read my own statements in the tax return and then I think: I did that well, that I did not cross the line once.”

Viruspolarisatie

“His influence is great and that creates danger,” says Dikkeboom. “His statements lead to polarization. He has to do crazier things to get the attention of his followers.”

One of the offending statements dates from last week. Engel wrote on Twitter ‘it is your duty to take care of as many infections as possible’. Dangerous, says Dikkeboom. Engel: “I understand that people are offended by that, but it was intended to open up the discussion: for whom is the virus actually dangerous? I added that it only applies if you are healthy and under seventy. That was the disclaimer.”

Punishable

Dikkeboom wants the Public Prosecution Service to keep its word. Prosecutor General Gerrit van der Burg announced in January that the Public Prosecution Service would take tough action against agitators. “Incitement is also a serious crime. Those who use social media – or otherwise – incite others to ignore the curfew or incite others to commit violence, they will also be dealt with severely if it is up to the Public Prosecution Service.”

An investigation is already underway into statements by Willem Engel about civil detention on officers. The case will continue on December 23.

Engel is not entirely confident about a favorable outcome of the mass declaration. “We have had 23 lawsuits of which we have only won two. Judges are activists, we don’t really have a rule of law at the moment. It has become a scary world.”

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