Viruswaanzin/Viruswaarheid In May 2020, after his dance school business had to close because of the COVID-19 pandemic, he founded the organization
Viruswaanzin ("virus madness"), which was later renamed to
Viruswaarheid ("virus truth"). Engel's organization claims that corruption in the government has ruined some people, and that the number of deaths from
COVID-19 is comparable to a normal flu season. In early 2021 he started a court case against the curfew that had been instated by the Dutch government, and the court ruled that there was insufficient legal basis for the imposed curfew. The Dutch government appealed and with a sped-up procedure passed a law that provided the legal ground for the measure. The measure was accepted by the
House of Representatives on 18 February 2021 and by the
Senate on the next day, the same day the appeal was handled by a higher court (which nullified the lower court's judgment). The organization makes personal attacks against politicians and virologists. In January 2021 Michaël Verstraeten, public spokesman of the organization, called for re-introducing the death penalty to punish virologists; one year later, in January 2022, Engel shared the home address of
Sigrid Kaag, leader of the Dutch
Democrats 66 party and finance minister, on
Twitter. Kaag reported this to the Dutch police and Engel's Twitter account was temporarily suspended.
Vrij en Sociaal Nederland In January 2021 Engel joined , a new political party that looked to get seats in the House of Representatives during the
2021 Dutch general election. He was placed third on the party list. His placement on the list, however, caused a split in the party, which resulted in the formation of Lijst30, better known as
Heart for Freedom.
2022 Ukraine invasion Right after the
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Willem Engel gave an interview in which he stated he understood the geopolitical reasoning behind Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He filed a lawsuit against the Dutch government for supplying weapons to
Ukraine. == References ==