Calling James Sharpe a ‘porn baron’ is a bad, bad thing, judge says
Former parliamentarian James Sharpe of the right-wing extremist Freedom Party (PVV) won an injunction against free newspaper Spits last week.
Spits is no longer allowed to call James Sharpe a ‘porn baron’. The epithet is ‘biased and unnecessarily hurtful’, internet lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet alleges.
One imagines the porn industry will be elated to see itself officially disassociated from Sharpe by a court of law.
Sharpe, son of a black immigrant and married to a Romanian woman, won a seat in parliament on a platform of hatred against immigrants, but resigned his seat when it became clear that he had lied about his Hungarian porn empire having a run-in with the law. This was during a time when Freedom Party front man (and single member) Geert Wilders still tried to get rid of representatives with a shady past—until he realised that this way he would soon be running out of viable candidates.
(Image: the Freedom Party logo. Any association with the logo of the Dutch Nazi party is, I am sure, as coincidental as flying the Dutch Nazi party flag.)
What Hungarian porn empire? The good man worked for a Telenor owned mobile marketing company as its CEO?
As far as I know, he was accused by the media that he was personally convicted for fraud. He truthfully denied this accusation and resigned because they wrongfully portrayed him as a a person who worked in the porn industry. Having two young daughters he felt he needed to protect his family from these attacks on his integrity.
Now the judge confirms the media’s wrongdoing.
A 100 % victory for Sharpe I would say.