Two men who projected racist slogans on the Erasmus bridge in Rotterdam during the New Year celebrations at the end of 2022 have been jailed for six months by judges in the port city.

The two, 26-year-old John A from Zwijndrecht and 36-year-old Daniil S from Landgraaf, were also found guilty of setting up similar projections on Eindhoven town hall during Carnaval in February 2023.

John A was also found guilty of projecting racist slogans on Alkmaar’s town hall.

The sentencing is in line with the public prosecution demand.

Texts including ‘white lives matter’ and ‘we must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children’ were projected onto the bridge as midnight sounded. The sentence was first used last century by a white supremacist group in the US and is known as ’14 words’.

“Locals, people on the street and more than a million television viewers who were watching the count down to midnight were confronted with slogans which claimed people of colour and with darker skins were inferior to white people,” the court said in its verdict. “Freedom of speech goes far, but there are limits.”

Neither man was in court for the trial or to hear the verdict.