anti-racism, decolonizing education, and empowering women. Her announcement caused an avalanche of negative reactions on social media platforms, some of which referred to her Surinamese heritage and have been characterized as sexist or racist. This last category includes a Facebook event, which received tens of thousands of reactions, to wave Simons goodbye on Saint Nicholas Day – a reference to her opposition to . Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Minister Lodewijk Asscher condemned the reactions, calling them "disgusting", and Simons filed a police report. DENK announced in November 2016 that Simons was receiving protection following a threat video on Dailymotion. It combined the carnival song , the lyrics of which ask her to leave the country, by Rob van Daal with a picture of lynched African Americans, whose faces had been replaced by the one of Simons. 22 people were prosecuted in April 2017 for threats and insults including the creator of the video, leading to at least twenty of them receiving fines of up to €450 and community-service orders of up to 80 hours. The Public Prosecution Service stated that it did not have the resources to investigate all 40,000 comments that were identified as possibly illegal. Own party and 2017 general election Simons left DENK on 24 December 2016 to establish a party of her own called Artikel 1 to participate in the 2017 general election. Simons told that she wanted to belong to a party where she felt safe. She criticized DENK for being more concerned with celebrating media attention than with Simons's well-being when she received protection. Besides, she called the party's tactics polarizing, although she praised its goal of putting racism on the political agenda. She also said that there was not enough space at DENK to stand up for women's and LGBT rights because of its conservative supporters. She founded her new party, which was named after the constitution's article addressing equality before the law and prohibiting discrimination, with DENK's campaign manager Ian van der Kooye. Following her departure, DENK demanded €62,000 in damages from Simons for violating her employment contract's confidentiality clause and notice period. A court determined that DENK instead owed €5,000 in wages to Simons, which she later declined. Ahead of the 2017 general election, Artikel 1 released its election program, in which it advocated single-payer healthcare, more female and immigrant cabinet members, a prohibition of in public spaces and on