GroenLinks-PvdA has filed a police report about two sitting MPs for the far right PVV  who are said to be behind number of fake images of party leader Frans Timmermans.

According to the Volkskrant, the Facebook page “Wij doen GEEN aangifte tegen Frans Timmermans” ( We will not report Frans Timmermans to police) has been secretly managed by MPs Maikel Boon and Patrick Crijns since 2014. They are currently 23rd and 24th on the party’s electoral list.

One AI-generated photograph, which was placed on the site on July 24, showed Timmermans handcuffed and being taken away by two policemen. The photo was liked over 800 times, and reactions included at least 10 death threats, such as “Hang him” and “Put a rope around his neck and let him dangle”.

The Facebook page, replete with AI-generated anti-immigrant material, has been growing in popularity with 500,000 unique visitors a day and peaks of over a million, the paper said.

The fact that two members of parliament are spreading fake photographs of a colleague, provoking and allowing death threats against him is a “scandalous new low” in the parliamentary democracy,” emeritus professor of constitutional law Paul Bovend’Eert told the paper.

“This not only affects Timmermans, it affects the authority of the parliament itself,” he said. “If you have people walking around doing this sort of thing to a colleague, it will harm the dignity and reputation of the lower house of parliament. And this at a time when people’s confidence in politics is already low.”

He also said it was “incomprehensible” that PVV leader Geert Wilders, who has lived in safehouses under strict security for 21 years, has not ousted the two MPs.

If the men are prosecuted, they could face a prison sentence of two years for slander, privacy expert Bart Schermer said.

Neither Maikel Boon nor Patrick Crijns responded to questions from the Volkskrant but the Facebook page was taken down shortly after they were approached.

Geert Wilders, who had previously used content from the page on his X account, initially declined to comment but has since apologised to Timmermans. In a short message on social media he said the actions were “inappropriate and scandalous” but did not announce any measures against the MPs.