Hafiz Saad Hussain Rizvi, who styles himself the “Emir of Pakistan’s Largest Religio-Political Organization,” the Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) party, and Muhammed Ashraf Asif Jalali, an imam linked to the TLP, have been convicted of inciting Muslims to murder Dutch populist leader Geert Wilders. Rizvi and Jalali, tried in absentia in the Netherlands, received four-year and 14-year sentences, respectively.
Wilders, whose Party for Freedom (PVV) is the largest in the Netherlands and incorporated into its new anti-mass migration government, was put under an Islamic fatwa by Jalali in 2018. This was sparked by Wilders’, a longtime critic of Islam, organizing a ‘Draw Mohammed’ contest, which had to be abandoned due to jihadist threats. Rizvi called for Wilders’s assassination at a press conference the same year.
Wilders wrote prior to the convictions that he has been “forced to live in various safe houses” since 2004 due to Islamists like Rizvi and Jalali. Theo Van Gogh, another Dutch Islam critic, was murdered in the streets of Amsterdam the same year by a jihadist who pinned a death threat against Ayaan Hirsi Ali to his body with a dagger. Ali, a Somalia-born Islam critic, has since fled Europe for the U.S.
Pakistan does not have an extradition treaty with the Netherlands, so Rizvi and Jalali are unlikely to be transported to the Netherlands, but the convictions may limit their travel overseas.
*** Breaking News ***
Pakistani imam @DrJalaliTLY who put a fatwa on my head to kill me was sentenced today for terrorism by a Dutch Court to 14 years in prison and TLP-leader and Emir @Saad_RizviTLP was sentenced to 4 years in prison!
Those two criminals have to be arrested… pic.twitter.com/33ZySl1VJs
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) September 9, 2024