The controversial Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders has gone on trial for inciting racial hatred against Muslims.

Prosecutors say the offences were committed between October 2006 and March 2008 in various newspapers and on the internet.

The 47-year-old risks a year in prison or a fine of 7,600 euros for describing Islam as a force “bent on destroying the West”, likening it to Nazism and calling for a ban on the Koran.

Wilders’ 17-minute film Fitna is part of the evidence.

Featuring the 2004 murder of director Theo Van Gogh whose film was critical of Islam’s treatment of women, its screening in 2008 prompted protests across most of the Muslim world.

The film also calls for a tax on headscarves, and an end to Muslim immigration to the Netherlands, Euronews reported.