THE GAZETTE (Montreal): The plight of Dutch MP Geert Wilders is enough to give any champion of free speech cause to worry. If nothing else, it illustrates that it's not just a handful of Canadian human-rights commissioners who are tightening the screws on free expression. The chill appears, rather, to be a worldwide phenomenon, and in fact, the situation in much of Europe seems even worse than it is here.
Wilders is an extreme right winger. His tiny Dutch Freedom Party has just nine seats in the parliament in The Hague. But it's not Wilders's political activities that have got him into trouble; it's his filmmaking. His 17-minute documentary, Fitna, has landed him in criminal court charged with inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims by comparing their religion to Nazism.
It doesn't sound like a very nice piece of work, and we understand why Muslims would be offended. Not surprisingly perhaps, its release prompted protests in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and Indonesia - hardly bastions of free expression.
The film apparently shows some of the Quran's 114 suras or chapters, interspersed with video of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the Madrid bombings, a caricature of Mohammed with a bomb on his head and shots of a Muslim woman being strapped down for a female circumcision ceremony.
Unpleasant? Sure. But nowhere is there any suggestion that Wilders's film calls for the persecution of Muslims or their extirpation. Nothing in the court documents says that the film incites non-Muslim Dutch citizens to go out and beat up their Muslim neighbours or destroy their property. The film simply deplores Islamic beliefs, and while that might be offensive, we fail to see how it could be criminal.
In fact, the Dutch prosecutor's office didn't see anything criminal in it, either. In June, it ignored complaints from all over the country and declined to charge Wilders. But this week, the Dutch Court of Appeal overruled the prosecutors and ordered the case to proceed. This is a dangerously slippery slope.
What are the Dutch going to do next? Ban Bill Maher's film, Religulous, which savages all faith? Or will they follow the example of Turkish courts, instead, and prosecute Richard Dawkins for his scathingly negative portrayal of the Bible and the Quran in The God Delusion? The possibilities are endless, and all equally absurd. >>> © Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette | Friday, January 23, 2009
THE GAZETTE (Montreal): Netherlands Caves on Free Speech
Re: "Dutch courts embark on slippery slope" (Editorial, Jan. 24 [sic]).
Geert Wilders's point of view is clear. He thinks radical Islam is a threat that propagates hate, calls for the destruction of the Western democratic, multicultural way of life, and he chooses to expose that cinematically. Article 7 of the Dutch constitution guarantees Wilders's freedom to publish or show anything without prior consent.
Here is a liberal Dutch society so steeped in the culture of fear and appeasement that its logic twists to try to be all things to all people. Impossible. >>> Alana Ronald, Montréal, © The Gazette (Montreal) 2009
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