An MP for the extreme right wing Forum voor Democratie should be given 200 hours community service for two cases of incitement to violence, the public prosecution department said on Tuesday.

Gideon van Meijeren, an MP for the party since 2021, is being prosecuted for two comments made during the farmers protests of 2022.

In one incident, he told a farmers rally in July 2022 that it is legal to use violence against the government in certain circumstances, in a reference to compulsory farm buyouts.

That November he gave an interview to a Belgian Youtube channel in which he said he dreamed of a “velvet revolution”, with a crowd marching on the parliament building in The Hague and saying: “We’re not leaving until the government is gone.”

Van Meijeren told the court he had not been inciting violence and that his words were more a call for “violence-free resistance”.

The public prosecutor disagreed, saying Van Meijeren had been capitalising on the anti-government sentiment in society at the time, due to the coronavirus measures and the nitrogen pollution problems.

Earlier sentences

It is not the first time Van Meijeren has clashed with the law. In March 2023 he was given a 60-hour community service order for riding his scooter through the streets of The Hague on two occasions while his driving licence had been suspended.

He was stripped of his licence for nine months in December 2021 for refusing a breath test when police approached him as he left the parliament complex in his car. Van Meijeren denied he had been drinking, insisting he was a teetotaller.