The number of racial discrimination complaints received by hotlines was double that of the whole of 2013 by the end of August this year.
Complaints to the various hotlines around the Netherlands increased from 3,143 in the whole of 2013 to 6,285 in the first eight months of 2014, according to figures from the racial discrimination hotline in Amsterdam.
One of the main causes for the rise is the speech made by anti-Islam PVV party leader Geert Wilders during the local elections in March, according to a spokesman for the hotline.
Wilders asked his audience if they wanted more or fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands, and then led them in a chant of ‘fewer, fewer, fewer’.
The hotline also says that despite the controversy about Zwarte Piet, the subject only brings in one or two complaints a month.\