The Arab European League is to be prosecuted for carrying a cartoon which discriminates against Jews on its website, the Dutch public prosecution department said on Wednesday.



The AEL put the cartoon back on its website last month after the public prosecution department decided not to take action against a number of potentially insulting cartoons.

The department said tv programme Nova and politician Geert Wilders will not be prosecuted for publishing the controversial Danish cartoons which poke fun at Mohammed. The department said reproducing the 12 cartoons, which led to worldwide unrest when published in a Danish newspaper in 2006, is not punishable by law because they target Mohammed not Muslims in general.

Double standard

However, the AEL was told it did face prosecution unless it removes a cartoon featuring two men in suits discussing how to boost the number of people killed during the holocaust.

That cartoon does ‘insult Jews because of their race and/or religion’ because it implies Jews themselves invented the idea that six million were killed during World War II, the department said at the time.

Although the cartoon had been taken off the AEL’s website three years ago, the league decided to republish it to highlight the double standards operating in society. ‘The AEL does not think any of the cartoons should be subject to prosecution,’ the organisation said in a statement.

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