Jewish organisations in the Netherlands are taking the leader of a Dutch far right party to court for comparing the current coronavirus rules with the Holocaust.

Thierry Baudet, founder of Forum voor Democratie, has repeatedly made the comparison in public and this, the organisations say, ‘is seriously offensive and unnecessarily hurtful to the murdered victims, survivors and relatives’.

The organisations want Baudet to remove all social media posts making the comparison and to be banned from using images from the Holocaust in debates about the coronavirus measures. For every day he does not comply, he should face a fine of €25,000, the organisations say.

The organisations highlight three statements made by Baudet. In one he said that ‘the unvaccinated are the new Jews, those who look away the new Nazis’. He also made a comparison between children who could not go to a Sinterklaas party because they were not vaccinated and a boy with a star of David on his back in the Lodz ghetto.

In the third incident, he said it was ‘totally ironic’ that the former Buchenwald concentration camp brought in special measures for the unvaccinated. ‘How can they still not see that history is repeating itself?’ Baudet said.

The right to freedom of speech does not justify Baudet’s actions, the organisations said in a press statement. ‘In the Netherlands, everyone is free to oppose the coronavirus regulations, but not by using such statements.’

The case will be heard on December 15.