The Twitter account of Dutch far-right leader Geert Wilders was suspended by the social media platform because of his words about the religion of Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. Wilders conducts his political work mainly on Twitter.
Twitter management reported that Wilders’ account will be opened if he deletes some messages. However, the far-right leader argued that he did not violate the rules.
In the last decision of Twitter, it was stated that Wilders’ message containing a call to Pakistani Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif regarding the death threats he received was effective.
The Freedom Party (PVV) leader told Dutch public broadcaster NOS that Twitter notified him that his account was suspended “for breaking the rules on hate speech”.
Upon death threats from Pakistani citizens on social media, Wilders shared a message on his Twitter account to the Prime Minister of this country, Shahbaz Sharif.
According to Wilders, Twitter suspended his account because of this message.
In his Twitter message, Wilders noted:
“What hurts Prime Minister Shehbaz is the violence of the intolerant ideology called Islam, the fatwas and death threats from Pakistanis inspired by the false prophet Mohammed. We always choose freedom over Islam and you will never win.”
After the initial complaint about this message, Twitter asked Wilders to delete the post. The social media platform reported that Wilders’ account will be opened within 12 hours if he removes the message.
The PVV leader appealed the decision, arguing that his message did not violate the rules.
Wilders claimed that the Twitter administration should respond to the appeal within two days, but by extending this period, their reminders were not responded to.
Evaluating Twitter’s decision as “strange”, the far-right leader said, “It is even more strange that my words are not allowed, while pictures of threats with a knife stuck in my head are allowed.”
Geert Wilders, who has close to 1 million followers on Twitter, mainly gives his political messages through this platform. For this reason, the far-right leader is sometimes the target of criticism as a “Twitter politician”.