THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — A Dutch court has convicted 20 people of insulting or threatening a politician and television personality in a racially charged case that shocked the nation.
The verdicts Thursday came in the trial in Amsterdam of 21 people accused of targeting Sylvana Simons, who is a former dancer and television presenter of Surinamese descent, with a torrent of online racist abuse. One person was acquitted.
The court said in a statement that the heaviest sentence, 80 hours of community service, went to a man who superimposed the head of Simons on video images of a Ku Klux Klan lynching.
Simons' political group, called Artikel 1, welcomed the verdicts, saying in a tweet that they sent a "clear signal" about the limits of freedom of speech.
Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
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