Prosecution of Wilders Will Go Ahead
RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLWIDE: The Public Prosecutor's Office will now definitely go ahead with the prosecution of the populist MP Geert Wilders for inciting hatred and discrimination. The Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal from Mr Wilders' lawyer Bram Moszkowicz to get the case dropped. This was the last avenue of appeal.

Initially the Public Prosecutor had no intention of putting Mr Wilders on trial, until an Amsterdam court responded to complaints lodged by prominent lawyer Gerard Spong and others by ruling that Mr Wilders had exceeded his parliamentary privilege and committed punishable offences.

He will be charged with inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims, particularly by comparing the Qur'an with Hitler's Mein Kampf and Islam with fascism.

On the website of his Freedom Party, Mr Wilders said, "It is a political trial. I am being prosecuted for saying about Islam what millions of Dutch people think. Freedom of speech is in danger of being sacrificed on the altar of Islam." Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin commented, "We do not have political trials in the Netherlands." [Source: RNW] | Wednesday, May 20, 2009

Radical Muslim Preacher Welcome in Rotterdam
RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE: Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin rejects demands by two parties to bar a radical Islamic preacher from speaking in the Netherlands.

Mr Hirsch Ballin wrote to parliament on Thursday that the preacher, American citizen Khalid Yasin, is free to enter the country and address audiences. The justice minister adds that Mr Yasin will risk prosecution if it turns out that his speeches incite hatred. He emphasises that everyone in the Netherlands has freedom of speech, provided they respect the rule of law. >>> By Rob Kievit | Friday, January 23, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback & Hardback – The Netherlands) >>>

Iran Wants European Law to Squelch Anti-Koran Film
REUTERS: Iran has urged the Netherlands to block a planned anti-Koran film, citing Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights as the legal basis for doing so. This is the latest twist in the saga surrounding the controversial film by far-right leader Geert Wilders (we’ve blogged on this before). In the letter, Iran’s Justice Minister Gholamhossein Elham asked his Dutch counterpart Ernst Hirsch Ballin to use European human rights law to stop a European from exercising one of those most basic rights. Freedom of expression has been the rallying cry of those who defended the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten for publishing the Mohammad cartoons — and republishing the most controversial one (the turban bomb) this week after a death threat against the artist who drew it.

This also raises the question of whether any protest against purported blasphemy against Islam this time might not turn out to be on the streets, as after the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, but in the courts. European Muslim organisations brought court suits against the cartoons in Denmark and in France but lost their cases — thanks to the principle of freedom of expression. Will the Iranian letter inspire any to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg? Nota bene — Danish imams preached calm at Friday prayers, in contrast to the imams who went to the Middle East to rally opposition to the cartoons when they first came out. Iran wants European law to squelch anti-Koran film >>> By Tom Heneghan

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)