Dutch court convicts man of insulting King Willem-Alexander

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – A Dutch court has sentenced a 44-year-old man to 30 days imprisonment for calling the country’s king a “murderer, rapist and thief,” in a rare use of a law against insulting the monarch.

The man, whose identity was not released in line with privacy rules, spent two weeks in pretrial detention and will not have to serve any prison time following Thursday’s conviction by a court in the eastern city of Zwolle.

According to the judgment, the man, who was born in Turkey, made the false accusations on his Facebook page. He also posted a manipulated photo of an impending execution by extremists in which he replaced one of the victims’ faces with that of King Willem-Alexander.

The court says “this behaviour is not acceptable in our society.”

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