Stifling Free Speech Is Not Really Free
In protecting Muslims from those who offend them, the West ill-serves Islam and those Muslims who seek its reform. Muslims need untrammelled free speech to awaken to the awareness of how totalitarian and comatose is their culture. – Salim Mansur, QMI Agency
TORONTO SUN – Comment: Free speech is not merely an ornamental bauble found in liberal democratic societies. It is the well-fought ground upon which the structures of such societies have been constructed.

It is free speech in practice, or its ideal subscribed to, that has distinguished Europe and western civilization from all others past and present. Its absence or suppression is the main feature of totalitarian culture.

Yet free speech has never been entirely free from siege by special interests.

Except for the United States where free speech is constitutionally protected by the first amendment, the exercise of free speech can still be constrained by the guardians of public interests as we see in the case of the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, indicted and brought to court for offending Muslims in Holland.

The trial of Wilders is as much a step backward from the ideal of free speech as it is indicative of how free people willingly compromise their freedom by forgetting their history.

In indicting Wilders for hate speech, the Dutch, and their Western supporters, have turned their backs to the long line of defenders of free speech as the cornerstone of liberty, from Spinoza and Voltaire to Emile Zola. >>> Salim Mansur, QMI Agency | Thursday, February 4, 2010

Pat Condell: The Crooked Judges of Amsterdam

Geert Wilders Launches Websites on Political Trial
PARTIJ VOOR DE VRIJHEID: Wednesday February 3rd 2010 Dutch politician Geert Wilders launches two websites on the political trial against him and the freedom of speech. From now on both the Dutch (www.wildersproces.nl) and the international public (www.wildersontrial.com) are able to keep up with the trials’ proceedings.

Both websites not only include the latest news on the trial but also provide background information on the trials’ participants, the summons, the cause and the importance of this trial for freedom of speech in the Netherlands and –possibly- for the whole of Europe.

Geert Wilders: “This trial is not just about me. It is about the future of freedom of speech in the Netherlands. The outcome of this trial affects the freedom of all Dutch citizens. With these websites, I want to make it possible for people to follow the latest developments concerning the trial.” [Source: Partij Voor De Vrijheid] | Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Wilders on Trial: A sledgehammer blow to the freedom of speech >>>

Het Wilders process: Aanslag op de vrijheid van meningsuiting >>>

Geert Wilders spreekt de rechtbank toe: Geert Wilder Speaks to the Court

Douglas Murray – The Trial of Geert Wilders: Why We Won't Be Hearing About Camel Urine
THE TELEGRAPH: The trial of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders recommenced yesterday with a ruling on which expert witnesses the defence would be permitted to call.

When the trial opened a fortnight ago, Wilders asked for a rather sparky list of 18 expert witnesses. They included some noted experts on Islam and social cohesion. And also a few, ahem, practitioners of the same. They were to include Mohammed Bouyeri, who shot, stabbed and partly beheaded the film-maker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam in 2004. And also Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the jihadist cleric who was given the red-carpet treatment in London by former mayor Ken Livingstone a few years back.

Sadly the Dutch court haven’t allowed these witnesses or most of the others, leaving the defence with only three witnesses. They are expert Simon Admiraal and leading Dutch scholar Hans Jansen (author of numerous scholarly books and the hilariously titled recent Islam for Pigs, Donkeys, Monkeys and Other Beasts). Most interestingly the court has allowed Wilders to call as an expert witness the brave and eloquent Wafa Sultan.

Sultan made her name – and garnered her first fatwas – for a blinding hit-the-ball-out-of-the-stadium interview on Al Jazeera a few years ago viewable here. It caused terrible convulsions across the Muslim world, and also apparently in Sheikh al-Qaradawi who described her home-truths session as consisting of “unbearable, ghastly things that made my hair stand on end.”

I much look forward to seeing Wafa Sultan take the stand. Though I slightly pity the prosecution for having to attempt to cross-examine her. Read on and comment here >>> Douglas Murray | Thursday, February 04, 2010

New Dark Age Alert! Geert Wilders’ Witness List Cut Down To Three In Medieval Amsterdam Trial
The Grim Reaper. Image: News Real Blog
DAVID HOROWITZ’S NEWS REAL BLOG: The Grim Reaper of Sharia is alive and well. His blade is still sharp. The fix is in at the Amsterdam Criminal Court. Today, the Judges hearing the “Inciting to Hatred” trial (read that: No more political free speech in The Netherlands – ever) of Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders slashed the number of witnesses he may call to testify in his defense from eighteen – to three. It’s all right out of the Dark Ages. It’s 632 A.D. again in The Netherlands. >>> John L. Work | Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Anti-Islam Dutch Lawmaker Says He’s Being Denied a Fair Trial; Court Rejects Most of His Witness List
CNS NEWS: The Dutch lawmaker on trial for his provocative views on Islam said Wednesday he was being denied the right to a fair trial after the court rejected most of his requested defense witnesses, including a convicted murderer who invoked the Koran to justify his actions.

The Amsterdam District Court ruled that Geert Wilders could only call three witnesses out of the 18 he wanted. Among those it turned down was Mohammed Bouyeri, imprisoned for life in 2005 for murdering a Dutch critic of Islam, filmmaker Theo van Gogh, on an Amsterdam street the previous year.

In a statement released after the brief hearing, Wilders said, “This court is not interested in the truth. This court doesn’t want me to have a fair trial. I can’t have any respect for this. This court would not be out of place in a dictatorship.” >>> Patrick Goodenough, International Editor | Thursday, February 04, 2010

Opinion – Leon de Winter*: Stop the Trial of Geert Wilders
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: A Dutch court is forced to compare Hitler's 'Mein Kampf' and the Quran.

What started as a trial against Geert Wilders for alleged Islamophobia has nearly turned into its opposite: a historical case about the message of the Quran. The Amsterdam court trying the controversial Dutch politician is now preoccupied with the question of whether this book, sacred to more than a billion believers, can be compared to one of the most vile publications in the history of Western civilization—Hitler's "Mein Kampf." What could possibly go wrong?

In his writing and speeches, Mr. Wilders has found these two works to be similar in terms of their anti-Semitism and incitement to hatred, and has thus called for a publishing ban on the Quran similar to the one in place for "Mein Kampf." This is what triggered Mr. Wilders's prosecution for discriminatory and insulting remarks against Muslims and Islam. The Dutch politician, though, denies having insulted Muslims. He insists his focus is on radical Islam and the Quran, which he considers to be not only a religious text but also a political pamphlet encouraging Muslims to discriminate against and, if necessary, kill Jews, Christians, apostates and other unbelievers. That's why Mr. Wilders claims the right to criticize and condemn Islam.

Following complaints brought by mostly Muslim and radical leftist activists, Amsterdam's district attorney in 2008 at first found no legal basis for prosecuting Mr. Wilders. Prosecutors were forced to change course only after an activist appeals court last year ordered Mr. Wilders's prosecution—basically condemning the politician before any trial could even begin and before Mr. Wilders had a chance to defend himself. The court's unusual intervention illustrates the Dutch confusion about the conflict between two essential rights: the right to free speech and the right to protection from discrimination. >>> Leon de Winter* | Tuesday, January 26, 2010

*Mr. de Winter is a Dutch novelist and adjunct fellow at the Hudson Institute.

Geert Wilders Doesn’t Get His Way in Court
RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE: Dutch politician Geert Wilders was visibly annoyed when he failed to get what he asked for from the three judges hearing his case at the Amsterdam District Court.

Mr Wilders, through his lawyer Bram Moszkowicz, had requested that 17 witnesses testify as part of his defence against charges that include inciting hatred of Muslims and non-western immigrants.
 


Murderer


Among others, Mr Wilders had asked that Mohammed Bouyeri, the convicted murderer of Theo van Gogh, be called as a expert witness.
 


The judges, however, will not allow Bouyeri to testify. They have also ruled that other 'Muslim extremists' on Mr Wilders' 'wishlist' will not be allowed to testify. The list includes Fawaz Jneid, imam at the Soennah Mosque in The Hague, and Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, chairman of the Guardian Council in Iran.

Ex-Muslims

Mr Wilders will be permitted to call three experts on Islam, out of the total of eight he had actually asked for. However, two ex-Muslims called by his defence team - in part to give their personal view about the impact of Islam - were also rejected.
 


In their ruling, the judges say Mr Wilders will have ample opportunity to tell the court whether he agrees with their decision to disallow some of his chosen witnesses[.] Staying in Amsterdam >>> John Tyler | Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Court Limits Wilders' Witness List
DUTCHNEWS.nl: The killer of Theo van Gogh and 14 of the other witnesses anti-Islam MP Geert Wilders wanted to call in his defence against charges of discrimination and inciting hatred have been ruled inadmissible by Amsterdam district court.

But three Islam experts proposed by Wilders will be heard behind closed doors, the judges said on Wednesday afternoon. They include American Syrian psychiatrist Wafa Sultan who believes the world is witness to 'a battle between modernity and barbarism which Islam will lose'.

The court also turned down Wilders' request to hear five legal experts on the grounds that the MP will have ample opportunity to say whether or not he agrees with them during the trial. He had wanted to call 18 experts and Muslim radicals. Truth >>> © DutchNews.nl | Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Dutch Critic of Islam Wants Extremist Killer to Testify at His Trial
CNSNEWS.com: As the trial of Dutch anti-Islamist lawmaker Geert Wilders resumes Wednesday, the crucial question will be whether the court agrees to his request to have a Muslim extremist and convicted murderer testify.

Wilders, who faces charges of discrimination and incitement to hatred over his claims linking the Koran to violence, wants the court to hear from an extremist who cited the Islamic text to justify his crime.

Mohammed Bouyeri is serving a life sentence for murdering Dutch film director Theo van Gogh, who had stoked controversy with a documentary about the treatment of women under Islam.

Van Gogh was stabbed and shot to death on a street in Amsterdam street in 2004. In a note left pinned to his body with a knife, Bouyeri threatened to kill another person reviled by extremist Muslims in Europe – Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalia-born Dutch politician who worked with Van Gogh on his film.

The lengthy note, which also warned that America, Europe and the Netherlands would be destroyed, included numerous references to the Koran.

Bouyeri, a Dutchman of Moroccan origin, had earlier penned another open letter posted on a Dutch Web site, again quoting from the Koran, threatening Wilders this time and declaring, “May Allah destroy you.”

During his 2005 trial, Bouyeri carried a copy of the Koran, told the court he had acted purely in the name of his religion, and displayed no regret for the murder. >>> Patrick Goodenough, International Editor | Wednesday, February 03, 2010

Ed West: Geert Wilders Is Not 'Far Right'
THE TELEGRAPH: Like my colleague Douglas Murray, who has already written an excellent post on the show trial of the century, I’ve been surprised by the lack of British media interest in Geert Wilders’s martyrdom in Amsterdam. An American minor celebrity only has to fart to receive blanket coverage in the British press, but when a major politician next door faces jail on trumped-up charges – in a case that will have implications for our freedom of speech – there seems to be little interest.

For those who haven’t visited these parts, Wilders is a Dutch politician on trial for “insulting” Islam by comparing the Koran to Mein Kampf, and for saying that Moroccans commit many street robberies in the Netherlands. Yes, put on trial – not fisked or twitter-lynched or condemned by the Equality Gestapo, but actually brought to court. Wilders calls it “surreal”, and it certainly seems strange that in a city where a gentleman can smoke Morocco’s most famous export and view half-naked women in shop windows, he can go to jail for criticising a religion. >>> Ed West | Saturday, January 30, 2010

Iranian Activists Hanged at Dawn
The protesters clashed with police and Islamist militiamen. Photograph: Times Online
This is just another manifestation of Islam’s credentials to be called the ‘religion of peace’! Geert Wilders in the Netherlands is on trial for highlighting its excesses and weaknesses of this self-same religion. And it is this self-same religion whose book, the Koran, in all its surahs (chapters) bar one, begin with the injunction, 'In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful'!

If Allah is so merciful and compassionate, I wish that Muslims would remember this when they pass sentence on hapless individuals who feel cheated by the repressive Islamic régimes they live under. If Muslims want Allah to show compassion and mercy on them, then maybe it’s time for them to show compassion and mercy on their brothers in Islam!

As for the Netherlands… What can one say about a country, any country, that puts one of its citizens, still less one of its leading politicians, on trial for telling the truth, as Douglas Murray has pointed out. Surely if things go on like this here in the West, a revolution cannot be far off the horizon. – © Mark

TIMES ONLINE: Two Iranians convicted of being "enemies of God" and trying to topple the Islamic regime were hanged at dawn today.

It was the first known execution of opposition activists since June's disputed presidential election prompted massive street protests - although the lawyer of one of the two men insisted that her client was arrested at least two months before the election and was not involved in any demonstrations.

The ISNA news agency said that Mohammad Reza Ali Zamani and Arash Rahmani Pour were "hanged on Thursday morning" after their sentences were confirmed by a Tehran appeals court, were hanged on Thursday morning”.

Both were convicted of being "Mohareb" - enemies of God - and of trying to overthrow the "Islamic establishment". They were also convicted of belonging to armed opposition groups.

Iran has tried more than 100 political activists and protesters since August. According to official media reports, five have been sentenced to death and more than 80 to prison terms ranging from six months to 15 years.

Reports today suggested that nine more had been sentenced to death in those trials and an appeals court is reviewing their cases.

Some of the latest nine death sentences were reportedly related to deadly clashes on December 27, when at least eight people were killed in the most violent day of protests since Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed a resounding re-election win. >>> Philippe Naughton | Thursday, January 18, 2010

THE TELEGRAPH: Iran executes two dissidents and sentences to death nine more: Iran delivered a chilling message of intent to the country's reform movement yesterday when it hanged two men accused of participating in protests following last year's disputed presidential election and sentenced to death nine more. >>> Adrian Blomfield, Middle East Correspondent | Thursday, January 28, 2010

Douglas Murray – Geert Wilders: On Trial for Telling the Truth
THE TELEGRAPH – BLOG: There is nothing hyperbolic in stating that a trial which has just started in Holland will have unparalleled significance for the future of Europe. It is not just about whether our culture will survive, but whether we are even allowed to state the fact that it is being threatened.

The trial of Geert Wilders has garnered hardly any attention in the mainstream press here. Fortunately the blogosphere can correct some of this.

Wilders is a Dutch MP and leader of Holland’s fastest-growing party, the Party for Freedom. Just a few years ago he was the sole MP for his party. The latest polls show that his party could win the biggest number of seats of any party in Holland when the voters next go to the polls.

His stances have clearly chimed with the Dutch people. They include an end to the era of mass immigration, an end to cultural relativism, and an end to the perceived suborning of European values to Islamic ones. For saying this, and more, he has for many years had to live under round-the-clock security protection. Which you would have thought proves the point to some extent.

Now the latest attempt of the Dutch ruling class to keep Wilders from office has begun. Last week, apparently because of the number of complaints they have received (trial by vote anyone?) the trial of Wilders began.

The Dutch courts charge that Wilders ‘on multiple occasions, at least once, (each time) in public, orally, in writing or through images, intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion’.

I’m sorry? Whoa there, just a minute. The man’s on trial because he ‘offended a group of people’? I get offended by all sorts of people. I get offended by very fat people. I get offended by very thick people. I get offended by very sensitive people. I get offended by the crazy car-crash of vowels in Dutch verbs. But I don’t try to press charges.

Yet, crazily, this is exactly what is going on now in a Dutch courtroom. If found guilty of this Alice-in-Wonderland accusation of ‘offending a group of people’, Wilders faces up to two years in prison.

If anyone doubts the surreal nature of the proceedings now going on they should simply look through the summons which is available in an English translation here. It shows that Wilders is on trial for his film Fitna. And for various things he has said in articles and interviews in the Dutch press.

Now some people liked Fitna and some people didn’t. That’s a matter of choice. But by any previous interpretation it is not the job of courts in democratic countries to become film-critics. In fact it would create a very bad precedent. I thought the latest Alec Baldwin film stank. But I don’t think (though the temptation lingers) Baldwin should go to prison for it. Read on & comment here >>> Douglas Murray | Thursday, January 28, 2010

Bruce Bawer: A Dark Day for the Enlightenment
CITY JOURNAL: The Geert Wilders trial is an affront to Western liberty.

Since 9/11, there has been a series of red-letter dates that should figure in any future history of the Islamization of Europe. One thinks, for example, of the Madrid train bombings on March 11, 2004, and of the general election three days later, in which Spanish citizens, apparently bowing to the terrorists’ wishes, voted in the Socialists, who had promised to pull the nation’s troops out of Iraq. One thinks, too, of the London bombings on July 7, 2005; of the international violence that followed the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s publication of cartoons of Mohammed on September 30, 2005; and of the shameful episode in which editor Vebjørn Selbekk, under intense pressure from craven Norwegian government leaders, apologized to a gathering of imams on February 10, 2006, for having bravely reprinted the cartoons.

Many of these red-letter dates have been concentrated in the Netherlands, a small country that once upon a time—not so long ago, in fact—was perceived around the world as a beacon of freedom and tolerance. The murder of professor, author, and Islam critic Pim Fortuyn in Hilversum on May 6, 2002, was followed by that of filmmaker, raconteur, and Islam critic Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam on November 2, 2004, and by the resignation of politician and Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali from the Dutch parliament on May 16, 2006. Ali’s resignation came as the result of a cowardly effort by her legislative colleagues to remove from their ranks the voice of a heroine of liberty, whom they plainly perceived as nothing more than a troublemaker in a country whose political and cultural elite has, in modern times, been less driven by principle than by consensus and compromise.

Today, alas, is also a red-letter date in the terrible history of this period, and once again the setting is the Netherlands. The figure at the center of today’s infamy is Islam critic Geert Wilders, member of the Dutch Parliament, head of the Freedom Party, and currently the most popular politician in the country—a man who, like Fortuyn eight years ago, looks like a strong prospect to be his nation’s next prime minister. Yet if Wilders enjoys strong backing from the Dutch electorate, he is also—again like Fortuyn, and for that matter like van Gogh and Hirsi Ali—despised by the Dutch political, cultural, educational, media, and business establishment, which has plainly decided not to fight the Netherlands’ Islamization but rather to help the process go as smoothly as possible.

Members of this establishment have made many efforts to silence Wilders. When he announced in November 2007 that he was making a film about the Koran, members of the Dutch cabinet expressed regret that they had no authority to stop him. During the same month, a leading member of the Dutch establishment, Doekle Terpstra, organized a coalition of influential Dutchmen whose goal was to exclude Wilders’s views from the public square. “Wilders is the evil,” said Terpstra, “and that evil must be stopped.” In January 2008, a long list of celebrated Dutchmen signed a statement that appeared on the front page of the newspaper Trouw condemning Wilders’s “intolerance” and calling for “a new balance between the values of then and now.” Bernard Welten, Amsterdam’s police chief, held talks with imams about Wilders’s film; the country’s national counterterrorism coordinator proposed that Wilders leave the country after its release. Commenting on Wilders, a long line of top Dutch politicians declared, in effect, that freedom of speech didn’t include the freedom to offend. In April 2007, intelligence and security officials had called Wilders on the carpet and demanded that he tone down his rhetoric about Islam; in February 2008, the Dutch ministers of justice and foreign affairs summoned him to a similar dressing-down. Wilders’s film, Fitna, appeared online on March 27, 2008. … >>> Bruce Bawer | Wednesday, January 20, 2010

English translation: Summons of the Accused >>>

Bruce Bawer blogs here

Fitna the Movie

"Geert Akbar!": “The Price of Freedom Is Eternal Vigilance”


Geert’s Trial: Day 1


Hat tip: Europe News >>>

Bat Ye’or: Politics and Freedom
ATLAS SHRUGS: Muslims might feel insulted by Geert Wilders’ opinions on Islam. However, Geert Wilders and non-Muslims feel insulted – threatened — by the hostile and negative opinions on them enshrined in Muslim holy books, laws and customs. These are not hidden or dismissed as outdated, but continuously and proudly published, taught and publicly expounded throughout the world — without being opposed by Muslim leaders. Westerners have been conditioned by their governments, their media, the Palestinisation of their culture and societies, to be the culprit and to accept without a murmur the continuous harassment of the permanent terrorist threat. Such terrorism has taken already many innocent lives and wounded countless others since it started, in the 1960s, in Europe with the collaboration of Palestinians and Nazi groups murdering Jews and Israelis.

In view of an aggressive indigenous and foreign terrorism within the Netherlands itself, it is clear that Geert Wilders is answering a provocation against him that obliges him to live under permanent security controls. How is it possible that in the XXIe century, in a democratic and peaceful Europe, some people, politicians, intellectuals, cartoonists or others, need 24-hour security when they have done nothing but lawfully express themselves ? Will self-censorship define our culture? >>> Bat Ye’or | Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Update on Our Hero in Amsterdam – “Geert Akbar”! Geert Wilders: 'I want Muslim Fanatic to Speak in My Defence'
TIMES ONLINE: Geert Wilders, the Dutch far-Right MP, has demanded that his race hate trial should hear evidence from the fanatic who used the Koran to justify killing the director of an anti-Islamic film.

It marked an incendiary opening to the landmark case that has divided the Netherlands over the limits of freedom. Mr Wilders, 46, who is accused of incitement and discrimination, asked for 18 witnesses to be called in his defence, including Mohammed Bouyeri, the man who stabbed and shot Theo Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street in 2004.

The Van Gogh murder left a deep scar on the national conscience. It helped to change the mood of tolerance of Islam, and boosted Mr Wilders’s popularity.

Mr Wilders, whose Party for Freedom came second in the European elections last summer, faces a 70-page charge sheet covering five counts of breaking Dutch law in more than 100 public statements — for example, by likening the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf and calling for an end to the “Islamic invasion”. He could be fined or jailed if convicted.

The alleged offences include Mr Wilders’s film Fitna, which shows images of 9/11 and beheadings interspersed with verses from the Koran. It ends with a clip of the controversial Danish cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.

At the opening day of the trial the prosecution objected to the request to hear from Bouyeri, and the panel of four judges adjourned until February 3 to consider which witnesses to call. “This case is about more than Mr Wilders,” Bram Moszkowicz, his lawyer, told the court. “It touches us all. It is such an important and principled question that could have far-reaching consequences.”

Mr Moszkowicz argued that the witnesses Mr Wilders wanted to call would prove that what he said was not simply inoffensive but true. He suggested that Bouyeri, a dual Moroccan-Dutch national, would be key to the case because he was a fervent Muslim who carried a Koran during his trial and defended his crime by claiming that Islam permitted violence against unbelievers. >>> David Charter in Amsterdam | Thursday, January 21, 2010

Hate Speech or Free Speech? Geert Wilders on Trial

First Day in Wilders Trial
NRC HANDELSBLAD INTERNATIONAL: The trial of the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, began this Wednesday.

The lead judge of the court started off by addressing Geert Wilders, leader of the populist PVV party, directly. The judge said that while the media might have portrayed his case as foregone, his court “would not cast judgment before the last word has been spoken”.

It is quite uncommon for judges to reassure their suspects that they will receive a fair trial. But it seems little in the case against Wilders will be business as usual. On Wednesday morning, hundreds of Wilders’ sympathizers were gathered outside the Amsterdam courtroom where Wilders was on trial for group slander and inciting discrimination and violence. A large number of Wilder’s statements to the media and his anti-Islam film Fitna will be presented as evidence. A comparison Wilders drew between the Koran and Hitler’s Mein Kampf is one of his remarks now under legal scrutiny.

Witnesses to be called

The hearing on Wednesday was formal in nature, establishing a general schedule for the trial. The defence and prosecution will be presenting their cases later this year. The first outlines of the case became clear on Wednesday however. The court will have to decide who can be called as a witness by Thursday. Wilders has said he feels that Islam should be on trial instead of him. In an attempt to prove that Islam provokes evil, he wants to call Theo van Gogh’s murderer, Mohammed B., as a witness. He also hopes to call a number of Dutch scholars who have voiced criticism of Islam in the past. The court might limit or expand the scope of the trial by allowing or barring certain witnesses.

Wednesday’s formal hearing kicked off with a number of preliminary motions in which the defence argued why Wilders should not be tried in the first place. His lawyer, Bram Moszkowicz, named several. He argued that Wilders should not be tried in Amsterdam, but in The Hague, where he lives. Moszkowicz also argued that the scope of the charges against Wilders had been extended unjustly when the public prosecutor chose to try him for inciting hatred against non-western migrant communities and Moroccans. The prosecution had not yet responded when this article was written. Already convicted? >>> Merel Thie | Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Protesters Back Dutch Anti-Islam Figure at Trial


Geert Wilders in Dutch Court Over Anti-Islam Comments
THE TELEGRAPH: Geert Wilders, a popular anti-Islamic politician, went on trial in Amsterdam on Wednesday, charged with inciting hatred against Muslims in a case seen as a test of Dutch tolerance and free speech.

Mr Wilders sparked outrage with his 2008 film "Fitna", which compared Islam to Nazism, and his repeated calls for the Koran to be banned on the same basis as Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

His Freedom Party is leading the opinion polls in the Netherlands and came second in European elections last June.

"I remain combative and still convinced that this political process will only lead to an acquittal," said Mr Wilders.

"It is surreal that I sit in a courtroom, in a criminal court. I never had any idea this would happen." >>> | Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Fitna the Movie

New Dark Age Alert! Hero on Trial in the Netherlands
TIMES ONLINE: The Dutch far-right MP Geert Wilders was greeted with applause from the public gallery as he faced court for the first day of his landmark trial on charges of inciting racial hatred against Muslims.

Mr Wilders, 46, sat impassively as his lawyer argued that the leader of the Freedom Party, which made big gains at last summer's European elections, had made his critical remarks about Islam in his role as an elected Member of Parliament.

Bram Moszkowicz said that Mr Wilders had a mandate to speak out against what he saw as the Islamisation of the Netherlands and argued that he had not discriminated against a specific national group, saving his attacks for the ideology of political Islam.

Around 200 supporters of Mr Wilders had travelled from as far as Cologne in Germany to hold up placards declaring that free speech was under assault by Islam and by the politically correct. The case is being watched as a test of the limits of political tolerance in the Netherlands after years of relaxed immigration policies which have seen the Musim population rise to around 1 million out of 16 million.

"This case is about more than Mr Wilders," Mr Moszkowicz told Amsterdam District Court this morning. "It touches us all. It is such an important and principled question that could have far-reaching consequences."

Mr Wilders faces a 70-page charge sheet covering five counts of breaking Dutch law on incitement and discriminiation against Muslims in more than 100 public statements, for example by likenening the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and calling for an end to the "Islamic invasion."

The alleged offences include Mr Wilders' film Fitna, which shows images of 9/11 and beheadings interspersed with verses from the Koran. It ends with a the controverisal Danish cartoon of the prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb as a turban. Far-right Dutch MP Geert Wilders on trial for anti-Muslim stance >>> David Charter in Amsterdam | Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Islam-Gegner Wilders in den Niederlanden vor Gericht: Alle Anschuldigungen beim Prozessauftakt bestritten
NZZ ONLINE: Zu Beginn seines Prozesses wegen angeblicher Anstachelung zum Hass gegen Muslime hat der niederländische Rechtspopulist Geert Wilders alle Vorwürfe der Volksverhetzung zurückgewiesen.

Die ihm zur Last gelegten kritischen Äusserungen über Muslime, den Koran und den Islam seien «ein substanzieller Beitrag zur öffentlichen Debatte» und keineswegs strafbar, erklärte Wilders Abraham Moszkowicz vor Gericht in Amsterdam.

Der Gründer und Chef der Partei für die Freiheit (PVV) habe seine Islam-Kritik zudem stets in seiner Eigenschaft als Abgeordneter des niederländischen Parlaments vorgebracht und müsse daher Immunität geniessen. Gerichtsgebäude abgeriegelt >>> sda/dpa | Mittwoch, 20. Januar 2010

MEIN KOMMENTAR: So nervös sind wir des Islams wegen in Europa geworden, daß harmlose Kommentare wie dieser, aus Angst, werden nicht mehr gedruckt:

In Europa ist es so weit gekommen, daß wir nicht mehr aussprechen dürfen, was für ein Gefahr für unsere Zivilisation und unsere Freiheit Islam ist. Erstaunlich! Blödsinnig! Dumm! Wir begehen Selbstmord! – © Mark