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

The Wilders Trial: Voices From Europe
BRUSSELS JOURNAL: In the summer of 2008, as many readers know, I traveled to six European countries to interview politicians dedicated to breaking, halting and/or reversing the Islamization of their countries (here is a collection of some of the writings inspired by the trip).

One of those politicians was Geert Wilders, then the little-known (outside of the Netherlands) leader of a very small party, PVV, the Party for Freedom. Only a year and a half later, Wilders is the most famous Dutchman in the world, and his party rivals the current ruling party in popularity. Wilders is also now on trial for his political life and liberty – hardly a coincidence.

But Wilders is not the only politician in Europe fighting Islamization. In my travels, I learned there were other countries where extremely courageous men and some notable women had entered the democratic arena to defend Western liberties against the onslaught of sharia (Islamic law), and with electoral success. In interviewing such politicians, I was much impressed with their political and, in these times of jihad violence, physical courage. Sadly, it remains the case that no US politicians speak with either the candor or understanding of the Islamic threat besetting the West that at least some of their European counterparts do.

With Wilders' trial begining today, I contacted three of the politicians I interviewed on my trip and asked them for their thoughts today. They have obliged – and in English, which is worth noting. In alphabetical order, they are Filip Dewinter, leader of the Vlaams Belang party in Belgium, Oskar Freysinger, a member of Swiss parliament for the Swiss People's Party (lately in the news for the recent victorious Swiss referendum banning minaret construction in Switzerland), and Morten Messershmidt, a member of European Parliament for the Danish People's Party. >>> Diana West | Wednesday, January 20, 2010

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

Barack Obama Criticises Censorship in Meeting with Chinese Students
THE TELEGRAPH: Barack Obama, the US president, has strongly criticised censorship in his first public appearance in China, veering directly into one of the most sensitive areas of Communist party policy.

Barack Obama: US President Barack Obama (L) shakes hands with students after answering questions at a town hall meeting at the Museum of Science and Technology in Shanghai. Photo: The Telegraph
Mr Obama told an audience of 400 Chinese students that freedom of "expression, and worship, of access to information and political participation" were "universal rights".

He said: "They should be available to all people, including ethnic and religious minorities, whether they are in the United States, China or any nation".

The Chinese government did its best to carefully choreograph Mr Obama's maiden tour, going as far as to hand-pick each student in the auditorium.

Mr Obama was allowed to open the floor to questions, but at least two of the four students he called upon were later discovered to be members of the Communist Youth League, the university arm of the party.

Nevertheless, a question selected by the US embassy gave the president an opportunity to tackle a more contentious topic. Asked for his opinion of the "Great Firewall of China", a censorship program that strips the internet of any political dissent, Mr Obama said he was a "big believer in openness".

He added: "The more freely information flows, the stronger a society becomes. Citizens can hold their own governments accountable. They can begin to think for themselves. That generates new ideas and encourages creativity. >>> Malcolm Moore in Shanghai | Monday, November 16, 2009

GLOBE AND MAIL: Obama holds town hall in China: Pressing for freedoms on China's own turf, President Barack Obama said Monday that individual expression is not an American ideal but a universal right that should be available to all. >>> AP video | Monday, November 16, 2009

Obama Welcomes Rise of China


TIMES ONLINE: China rounds up dissidents as President Obama touches down in Beijing: Chinese officials have rounded up dozens of Beijings’s tiny coterie of activists and petitioners in case any dissident tries to approach President Obama, who arrived in the city today.
The arrests continued to gather momentum even as Mr Obama told an unprecedented question-and-answer session with Shanghai students that freedom of information and expression were vital for a stronger, more creative society. >>> Jane Macartney in Beijing | Monday, November 16, 2009

LE TEMPS: En Chine, Barack Obama évoque des «droits universels» : Le président américain Barack Obama a prôné lundi à Shanghai la liberté d’expression, de culte et d’information, y compris sur l’Internet, lors de sa première visite en Chine. Il a ensuite rejoint Pékin pour des entretiens politiques avec son homologue Hu Jinato. >>> ATS | Lundi 16 Novembre 2009

People Must Be Free to Hold Intolerant Views about Homosexuality
THE TELEGRAPH: Ministers seem set on eroding yet another safeguard to our liberty, says Philip Johnston.

An important blow for free speech was struck in the dying hours of the last parliamentary session, despite a desperate rearguard action by the Government to quash it. Ministers wanted to remove a protection inserted into a law, passed only last year, which made it an offence to express hatred of homosexuals. But they were twice beaten back in the Lords and eventually ran out of time.

They may try again in the coming session that starts on Wednesday, the last before the general election.

This story encapsulates much that has been so pernicious about the 12 years of misrule to which the country has been subjected. No one can remember a government returning in the very next session to try to undo something to which it had agreed (albeit reluctantly) in the preceding parliamentary term. The free speech protection was proposed by Lord Waddington, a former Home Secretary. It stated: "For the avoidance of doubt, the discussion or criticism of sexual conduct or practices or the urging of persons to refrain from or modify such conduct or practices, shall not be taken of itself to be threatening or intended to stir up hatred."

This was done for a purpose. There are too many instances of people being questioned by the police under existing public order legislation for holding views that may be considered offensive or intolerant for yet another measure to be passed without setting out the circumstances in which it is meant to be used. These instances include a grandmother, Pauline Howe, who was visited by two constables because she wrote to her local council to complain about a gay rights march and what she considered a "public display of indecency". She was told she might have committed a "hate crime".

A similar experience befell Joe and Helen Roberts, a Christian couple lectured by Lancashire police on the evils of "homophobia" after criticising gay rights in a letter to Wyre Borough Council. A few years ago, Lynette Burrows, a family campaigner, was the target of a police inquiry after saying on the radio that she did not believe homosexuals should be allowed to adopt. Sir Iqbal Sacranie, the former head of the Muslim Council, had his collar felt, as did the Bishop of Chester for making remarks in a religious context that no sane person could have taken as stirring up hatred against homosexuals. The most preposterous example was the Oxford student who was arrested and threatened with prosecution for calling a police horse gay. >>> Philip Johnston | Monday, November 16, 2009

Committed to Free Expression? What Nonsense
TIMES ONLINE: Yale has acted cravenly over images of Muhammad

A Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, published 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in September 2005. This seemingly innocuous decision preceded worldwide protests, death threats, trade boycotts and attacks on Danish embassies.

An outstanding scholarly account of these events is published this week, entitled The Cartoons that Shook the World by Jytte Klausen, a Danish academic in the US. Klausen dissects the motives of the main actors and illuminates debates over free speech and the place of religion in Western societies. It’s a murky business, by which, she says, “protests developed from small-scale local demonstrations to global uproar only to subside without a proper conclusion”.

Yet while there has been no conclusion, there has been change and decay. The controversy spurred an argument that would defend the principle of free speech while deploring the failure to exercise it sensitively. “We believe freedom of the press entails responsibility and discretion, and should respect the beliefs and tenets of all religions,” declared the United Nations after Danish diplomatic missions were torched.

That principle is moderate, balanced and pernicious. The idea that people’s beliefs, merely by being deeply held, merit respect is grotesque. A constitutional society upholds freedom of speech and thought: it has no interest in its citizens’ feelings. If it sought to protect sensibilities, there would be no limit to the abridgements of freedom that the principle would justify. >>> Oliver Kamm | Monday, September 28, 2009

Copywrong


Hat tips: Midnight Rider and Always On Watch

Geert Wilders in Beverly Hills

New Dark Age Alert! The Free World Bars Free Speech
THE WASHINGTON POST: For years, the Western world has listened aghast to stories out of Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern nations of citizens being imprisoned or executed for questioning or offending Islam. Even the most seemingly minor infractions elicit draconian punishments. Late last year, two Afghan journalists were sentenced to prison for blasphemy because they translated the Koran into a Farsi dialect that Afghans can read. In Jordan, a poet was arrested for incorporating Koranic verses into his work. And last week, an Egyptian court banned a magazine for running a similar poem.

But now an equally troubling trend is developing in the West. Ever since 2006, when Muslims worldwide rioted over newspaper cartoons picturing the prophet Muhammad, Western countries, too, have been prosecuting more individuals for criticizing religion. The "Free World," it appears, may be losing faith in free speech.

Among the new blasphemers is legendary French actress Brigitte Bardot, who was convicted last June of "inciting religious hatred" for a letter she wrote in 2006 to then-Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, saying that Muslims were ruining France. It was her fourth criminal citation for expressing intolerant views of Muslims and homosexuals. Other Western countries, including Canada and Britain, are also cracking down on religious critics.

Emblematic of the assault is the effort to pass an international ban on religious defamation supported by United Nations General Assembly President Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. Brockmann is a suspended Roman Catholic priest who served as Nicaragua's foreign minister in the 1980s under the Sandinista regime, the socialist government that had a penchant for crushing civil liberties before it was tossed out of power in 1990. Since then, Brockmann has literally embraced such free-speech-loving figures as Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, whom he wrapped in a bear hug at the U.N. last year. >>> By Jonathan Turley* | Sunday, April 12, 2009

*Jonathan Turley is a law professor at George Washington University.

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>

Prophet Muhammad Cartoon Goes on Sale in Denmark
ASSOCIATED PRESS: COPENHAGEN — A Danish press freedom group said Wednesday it is selling copies of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad that caused outrage across the Muslim World.

Some 1,000 printed reproductions of a drawing depicting the prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban are being sold for 1,400 kroner ($250) each, said Lars Hedegaard, chairman of the Danish Free Press Society.

"All we are doing is starting a debate," Hedegaard said. "We are using our freedom of speech." >>> By Jan M. Olsen | Wednesday, April 8, 2009

The most famous cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad, created by Kurt Westergaard.

UN Urged to Reject Bar on Defamation of Religion
REUTERS: GENEVA - Some 200 secular, religious and media groups from around the world on Wednesday urged the United Nations Human Rights Council to reject a call from Islamic countries for a global fight against "defamation of religion."

The groups, including some Muslim bodies, issued their appeal in a statement on the eve of a vote in the Council in Geneva on a resolution proposed by the 56-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).

Such a resolution, the statement said, "may be used in certain countries to silence and intimidate human rights activists, religious dissenters and other independent voices," and to restrict freedom of religion and of speech.

The resolution, its critics say, would also restrict free speech and even academic study in open societies in the West and elsewhere. >>> By Robert Evans | Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Islamic States: Criminalize Defamation of Islam
THE JERUSALEM POST: The Islamic states circulated a new resolution at the current session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Wednesday that would criminalize defamation of Islam as a human rights violation and encourage the imposition of Shari'a.

According to the nonbinding governmental resolution, titled "Combating Defamation of Religions," anything deemed insulting to Islamic sensitivities would be banned as a "serious affront to human dignity" and a blatant violation of religious freedom.

The resolution would attempt to influence "local, national, regional and international levels" to incorporate such guarantees of this perceived freedom in their "legal and constitutional systems."

"It is a covert package coordinated by Pakistan against the West," said Leon Saltiel, director of communications at the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, on Thursday. "They think there is too much liberty and freedom of expression in the Western world, which therefore defames religion."

This resolution is part of the ongoing campaign of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, a powerful bloc of 56 states at the UN, which began to introduce annual resolutions in 1999 to ban the "defamation of Islam."

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said during an address to Radio Free Europe in December that "Islamic states pursued the diplomatic battle with a vengeance" because of the post-9/11 war on terror and the controversy ignited by the cartoon of their prophet published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September 2005.

"The resolutions pose a major threat to the premises and principles of international human rights law and harm Muslims as much as non-Muslims. International law already protects victims of religious discrimination," for instance via the 1984 Declaration of Human Rights and the 1966 International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, declared Neuer.

The resolutions fail to address human rights violations of Muslim countries, notably Iran's persecution of Baha'is, Saudi Arabia's banning of all religious practice aside from Islam, and the persecution of Christian communities in Egypt, Pakistan and Iraq.

The latest resolution is "not really trying to protect individuals from harm," but rather attempting "to shield a set of beliefs from question or debate and to ban any discussion of Islam that may challenge state orthodoxies or offend Islamic sensibilities," Neuer said. >>> Maya Spitzer | Thursday, March 12, 2009

The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Paperback – USA)
The Dawning of a New Dark Age (Hardcover – USA)

Will the UN Make Blasphemy Illegal?

Hat tip: Always On Watch >>>

*Please excuse the profanity at the bottom of the screen. I have no control over that message. Because this video is too important to ignore, I am overlooking it. I hope you will too.

The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Paperback (US) Barnes & Noble >>>
The Dawning of a New Dark Age – Hardcover (US) Barnes & Noble >>>

Geert Wilders’ New York Speech
Thank you.



Thank you very much for inviting me. And – to the immigration authorities – thank you for letting me into this country. It is always a pleasure to cross a border without being sent back on the first plane.



Today, the dearest of our many freedoms is under attack all throughout Europe. Free speech is no longer a given. What we once considered a natural element of our existence, our birth right, is now something we once again have to battle for. 


As you might know, I will be prosecuted, because of my film Fitna, my remarks regarding Islam, and my view concerning what some call a ‘religion of peace’. A few years from now, I might be a criminal.



Whether or not I end up in jail is not the most pressing issue; I gave up my freedom four years ago. I am under full-time police protection ever since. The real question is: will free speech be put behind bars? And the larger question for the West is: will we leave Europe’s children the values of Rome, Athens and Jerusalem, or the values of Mecca, Teheran and Gaza?



This is what video blogger Pat Condell said in one of his latest you tube appearances. He says: “If I talked about Muslims the way their holy book talks about me, I’d be arrested for hate speech.” Now, Mr Condell is a stand-up comedian, but in the video he is dead serious and the joke is on us. Hate speech will always be used against the people defending the West – in order to please and appease Muslims. They can say whatever they want: throw gays from apartment buildings, kill the Jews, slaughter the infidel, destroy Israel, jihad against the West. Whatever their book tells them.



Today, I come before you to warn of a great threat. It is called Islam. It poses as a religion, but its goals are very worldly: world domination, holy war, sharia law, the end of the separation of church and state, slavery of women, the end of democracy. It is NOT a religion, it is an political ideology. It demands your respect, but has no respect for you.



There might be moderate Muslims, but there is no moderate Islam. Islam will never change, because it is built on two rocks that are forever, two fundamental beliefs that will never change, and will never alter. First, there is the Quran, Allah’s personal word, uncreated, forever, with orders that need to be fulfilled regardless of place or time. And second, there is al-insal [sic] al-kamil, the perfect man, Muhammad the role model, whose deeds are to be imitated by all Muslims. And since Muhammad was a warlord and a conqueror we know what to expect. Islam means submission, so there cannot be any mistake about it’s goal. That’s a given. It’s fact.



This is Europe 2009. Muslim settlers calling for our destruction, and free speech on trial. All this is the outcome of a sick and evil ideology, the ideology that is weakening us, the surrender ideology of cultural relativism. It believes that all cultures are equal, and therefore Islam deserves an equal place in the West. It is their duty, the left thinks, to facilitate Islam. This way the cultural relativists paradise comes within reach and we will all be happy, and sing kumbaya.



The forces of Islam couldn’t agree more. Islam being facilitated by government is their agenda too. But they see it as jizya, the money dhimmis pay in order not to be killed or raped by their Muslim masters. Therefore, they happily accept the welfare cheque or the subsidies for their mosque or the money governments donate to their organizations.


This is just one example of cultural relativists and Muslim settlers having the same agenda. There is another. Islam considers itself a religion and therefore we are not permitted to criticize it. The left agrees. Although it hated Christianity for decades, now that Islam appears on the scene, they suddenly change course and demand ‘respect’ for something they call a religion.



Again we see the left and Islam having the same agenda: it is a religion, so shut up.



This all culminates in a third coming-together: nor the left nor Islam is in favor of criticism. In fact, given the opportunity, they would simply outlaw it. Multiculturalism is the left’s pet project. It is actually their religion. Their love of it is so great, if you oppose it, it must be hate. And if you say it, it is labeled hate speech. Now here is something the Islam can agree on.



This is the essence of my short introduction today: where the left and Islam come together, freedom will suffer.



My friends, make no mistake, my prosecution is a full-fledged attack by the left on freedom of speech in order to please Muslims. It was started by a member of the Dutch Labour party, and the entire legal proceeding is done by well-to-do liberals, the radical chic of Dutch society, the snobbish left. Too much money, too much time, too little love of liberty. If you read what the court of Amsterdam has written about me, you read the same texts that cultural relativists produce.




How low can we go in the Netherlands? About my prosecution, The Wall Street Journal noted: “this is no small victory for Islamic regimes seeking to export their censorship laws to wherever Muslims reside”. The Journal concluded that by The Netherlands accepting the free speech standards of, “Saudi-Arabia”, I stand correct in my observation that - I quote - “Muslim immigration is eroding traditional Dutch liberties”.



Now, if the Wall Street Journal has the moral clarity to see that my prosecution is the logical outcome of our disastrous, self-hating, multiculturalists immigration policies, then why can’t the European liberal establishment see the same thing? Why aren’t they getting at least a little bit scared by the latest news out of, for example, the UK. News that tells that the Muslim population in Britain is growing ten times as fast as the rest of society. Why don’t they care?



The answer is: they don’t care because they are blinded by their cultural relativism. Their disdain of the West is so much greater than the appreciation of our many liberties. And therefore, they are willing to sacrifice everything. The left once stood for women rights, gay rights, equality, democracy. Now, they favour immigration policies that will end all this. Many even lost their decency. Elite politicians have no problem to participate in or finance demonstrations where settlers shout “Death to the Jews”. Seventy years after Auschwitz they know of no shame.



Two weeks ago, I tried to get into Britain, a fellow EU country. I was invited to give a speech in Parliament. However, upon arrival at London airport, I was refused entry into the UK, and sent back on the first plane to Holland. I would have loved to have reminded the audience of a great man who once spoke in the House of Commons. In 1982 President Reagan gave a speech there very few people liked. Reagan called upon the West to reject communism and defend freedom. He introduced a phrase: ‘evil empire’. Reagan’s speech stands out as a clarion call to preserve our liberties. I quote: If history teaches anything, it teaches self-delusion in the face of unpleasant facts is folly. What Reagan meant is that you cannot run away from history, you cannot escape the dangers of ideologies that are out to destroy you. Denial is no option.



So, what should we do? Is this a good moment for freedom-loving people to give in or to change course? To all-of-a-sudden start singing praise of Islam, or proclaiming there is such a thing as a moderate Islam? Will we now accept the continuation of Muslim mass immigration to the West? Will we appease sharia and jihad? Should we sacrifice gay rights and women rights? Or democracy? Should we sell out Israel, our dearest ally, and a frontline state of Islam?



Well, my humble opinion is: No way, Jose!




I suggest to defend [sic] freedom in general and freedom of speech in particular. I propose the withdrawal of all hate speech legislation in Europe. I propose a European First Amendment. In Europe we should defend freedom of speech like you Americans do. In Europe freedom of speech should be extended, instead of restricted. Of course, calling for violence or unjustly yelling “fire” in a crowded theatre have to be punished, but the right to criticize ideologies or religions are necessary conditions for a vital democracry. As George Orwell once said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.




Let us defend freedom of speech and let us gain strength and work hard to become even stronger. Millions think just like you and me. Millions think liberty is precious. That democracy is better than sharia. And after all, why should we be afraid? Our many freedoms and our prosperity are the result of centuries of endeavour. Centuries of hard work and sacrifice. We do not stand alone, and we stand on the shoulders of giants.




Late December 1944 the American army was suddenly faced with a last-ditch effort by the Germans. In the Ardennes, in the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler and his national-socialists fought for their last chance. And they were very successful. Americans faced defeat, and death.



In the darkest of winter, in the freezing cold, in a lonely forest with snow and ice as even fiercer enemies than the Nazi war machine itself, the American army was told to surrender. That might be their only chance to survive. But General McAuliffe thought otherwise. He gave the Germans a short message. This message contained just four letters. Four letters only, but never in the history of freedom was a desire for liberty and perseverance in the face of evil expressed more eloquently than in that message. It spelled N – U – T – S. “Nuts”.



My friends, the national-socialists got the message. Because it left no room for interpretation!



I suggest we walk in the tradition of giants like General McAuliffe and the American soldiers who fought and died for the freedom of my country and for a secular and democratic Europe, and we tell the enemies of freedom just that. NUTS! Because that’s all there is to it. No explanations. No beating around the bush. No caveats.



Our enemies should know: we will never apologize for being free men, we will never bow for the combined forces of Mecca and the left. And we will never surrender. We stand on the shoulders of giants. There is no stronger power than the force of free men fighting for the great cause of liberty. Because freedom is the birthright of all man.

Hat tip: Pamela Geller of Atlas Shrugs >>>

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Freedom Dies as Radical Islam Advances
THE DC EXAMINER: Halfway through “Fitna,” the short film about radical Islam made by Dutch MP Geert Wilders, we see an angry imam, speaking Arabic and telling how it will be.

“We have ruled the world before, and by Allah the day will come when we rule the entire world again!” the translation scrolls, “The day will come when we will rule America! The day will come when we rule Britain and the entire world!”

Score one for the Islamists, where Britain is concerned. The cringing bureaucrats of Gordon Brown’s Labour government barred Wilders from entering the country last week to attend a screening of “Fitna” at, of all places, Britain’s Houses of Parliament.

The 17-minute movie, which has been out for a year and is easily viewed online, seeks to make the case that Islam is dangerously in the ascendant in the Netherlands.

The film is composed almost entirely of scenes where Muslims are doing the talking, but it includes images of terrorist attacks and violent passages from the Quran.

It features clips of radical Islamist preachers calling for the murder of Jews and the defenestration of gays. It shows dead female victims of honor killings, a kneeling woman in a burqa being executed, and a captured Westerner being beheaded by masked Islamic militants.

Now, Wilders didn’t write the Quran, he didn’t bomb the Twin Towers, and where his narrative voice comes in, it’s not even saying anything very extraordinary – not in a world where a lot of people say a lot of things.

With the same material, one suspects that a practiced polemicist like Michael Moore could have made something even more shocking.

But Britain’s first Muslim peer, Lord Ahmed, warned that 10,000 Muslims would march on Parliament if Wilders appeared at the screening.

So the government caved. Home Secretary Jacqui Smith banned the Dutchman for fear his presence “would threaten community security and therefore public security.”

See how easily old freedoms are revoked? You would think that there’s no point in freedom of speech if you can’t use it to say unpopular things.

Yet in Britain – and in the Netherlands, where Wilders faces trial and a jail term for making “Fitna” – that freedom is gone. >>> By Meghan Cox Gurdon, Examiner Columnist | Thursday, February 19, 2009

FRONTPAGEMAG.COM:
Wilders Coming to America >>> Robert Spencer | Thursday, February 19, 2009

Geert Wilder’s English website >>>

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Turkey Breaks Company with EU in Gay Vote
HÜRRIYET: ANKARA - In an atmosphere where Turkey is being criticized for the slow pace of its EU reforms, the country refuses to sign a declaration calling all states to take steps to stop the criminalization of homosexuality, contradicting its commitments to the EU in promoting human rights

Turkey refused to sign a European Union-led declaration presented last week at the United Nations calling all states to take steps to stop the criminalization of homosexuality. The move contradicted Turkey’s commitments to the EU to promote human rights for all without any discrimination.

"It’s very frustrating for Turks who wish the state to become a member of the EU. Turkey’s position with regard to this issue is more important than Cyprus to us," an EU ambassador told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review after it became clear that Ankara declined to join the 27 EU countries who endorsed the groundbreaking initiative.

Co-sponsored by France and the Netherlands, the declaration urged all states "to take all the necessary measures, in particular legislative or administrative, to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests or detention."

The appeal is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states in Article One: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." Out of 192, 66 countries signed the document, saying they "are disturbed that violence, harassment, discrimination, exclusion, stigmatization and prejudice are directed against persons in all countries in the world because of sexual orientation or gender identity."

The signatories "condemn the human rights violations based on sexual orientation or gender identity wherever they occur," especially "the use of the death penalty on this ground," as well as their "arbitrary arrest or detention and deprivation of economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to health." >>> By Serkan Demirtaş | Monday, December 22, 2008

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE: EU Enlargement Commissioner Urges Turkey to Take Steps toward Admission

BRUSSELS: Turkey must overcome internal divisions and get back to long-delayed reforms early next year to show it is serious about wanting to join the European Union, the bloc's enlargement commissioner, Olli Rehn, said in an interview.

Rehn also said he expected more Balkan countries to apply for EU membership following Montenegro's move earlier this month, but he urged them not to rush in because they must first show a track record of reform.

He warned EU hopefuls in Southern and Eastern Europe not to take the financial crisis as a pretext to give up on reform, adding that these countries must be helped to avoid going into free fall because of the crisis.

Next year should also be the year of a settlement in Cyprus, Rehn said.

"Next year will be an important litmus test of whether Turkey is serious about its EU accession perspective," Rehn said in the interview. "After one or two years of domestic difficulties, we would expect Turkey now to put up a new gear and seriously start to pursue the reforms again."

Turkey began accession negotiations in 2005 and has made slow progress in satisfying the EU. Analysts say political distractions at home and a lack of appetite for further enlargement among EU states have pushed accession to the back burner in Turkey.

Turkish society has long been divided over the role of religion in an officially secular but predominantly Muslim country.

Turkey narrowly avoided a crisis this year over a public prosecutor's attempt to have the Constitutional Court ban the governing Justice and Development Party because of its Islamist bent.

"I am aware of the dilemmas of the Turkish society in relation with the more secular and more religious lifestyles," Rehn said.

"It is essential that Turkish society find a modus vivendi.

"There is too much energy used on internal tensions which could be used for pursuing legal and economic reforms that are required for EU membership."

He said it was essential for Turkey to reform its Constitution and increase freedom of expression, and religious and linguistic rights, to be in line with EU standards. He said trade unions and business federations were blocking a trade union law essential to Turkey's EU accession process. >>> By Ingrid Melander, Reuters | Sunday, December 21, 2008

LE MONDE: La Turquie négocie avec Bruxelles mais bute toujours sur Chypre

La Turquie a fait un pas supplémentaire dans sa marche vers l'intégration à l'Union européenne avec l'ouverture, vendredi 19 décembre, de deux nouveaux chapitres des négociations d'adhésion. L'un est consacré à la liberté de circulation des capitaux et l'autre à la société de l'information et aux médias. Cela porte à dix, sur trente-cinq, le nombre de volets des négociations ouverts depuis octobre 2005.

"La présidence tchèque, puis suédoise, pourra ouvrir de nouveaux chapitres comme l'éducation et la culture, ou la taxation, mais après, c'est terminé", prédit cependant Cengiz Aktar, directeur du département européen de l'université Bahçesehir d'Istanbul. Huit chapitres restent en effet gelés depuis décembre 2006 en raison du blocage sur la question chypriote : la Turquie refuse toujours d'ouvrir ses ports et ses aéroports aux navires et aux avions de la République de Chypre, qu'elle ne reconnaît pas. Les Vingt-Sept doivent réexaminer ce problème en 2009. >>> Istanbul Corresponance | Samedi 20 Décembre 2008

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New Dark Age Alert! Qatar’s UN Ambassador Urges Prosecution for Blasphemy
THE NATIONAL: NEW YORK - A Gulf diplomat has urged foreign governments to prosecute individuals who make offensive and defamatory statements against Islam and other faiths during a heated debate at United Nations headquarters.

 Speaking on behalf of members of the Gulf Cooperation Council, Nasser Abdulaziz al Nisr, Qatar’s ambassador to the United Nations, told delegates at a recent meeting that “freedom of expression” should not permit the abuse of religions.

The GCC speech marked the latest episode in a fractious debate that was raging even before Sept 2005, when the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons satirising the Prophet Mohammed.

 Speaking in New York, Mr Nisr described blasphemy as unacceptable, while western governments allege leaders from the Islamic world are trying to stifle basic freedoms and infringe the rights of non-Muslims.

“Our countries categorically reject all forms of incitement, discrimination, hostility, violence, attempts to justify the distortion of religions and hostility-based incitement of religions in the name of freedom of expression,” Mr Nisr said this week. “The responsibility rests, therefore, with the governments to address such conduct by legal and executive possible means, including amending legislation that allows such practices in the name of freedom of expression and opinion.”

Mr Nisr was speaking in advance of a vote in the UN General Assembly’s committee on human rights on a draft resolution intended to “combat defamation of religions”.

The draft resolution is supported by the 57-member Organisation of the Islamic Conference and has passed every year since 2005. Although not binding in international law, the resolution sets a global moral standard.

The most recent version of the resolution, which passed in December, emphasises that the freedom of expression “carries with it special duties and responsibilities” and may be “subject to limitations as are provided for by law”.

The cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten and their republication by a string of western newspapers provoked riots in parts of the Islamic world, boycotts on Danish goods and demands for prosecution of those responsible.

Denmark’s justice ministry this week rejected the third bid by seven Muslim lobby groups to take the newspaper to the Supreme Court for publishing the cartoons.

 Other cited examples of defamation of religion have included Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 address at the University of Regensburg and Salman Rushdie’s controversial 1988 novel The Satanic Verses.

A coalition of countries that advocate free speech, including the United States, is trying to thwart the OIC resolution this year by persuading more moderate Muslim nations to vote against it.

In publishing its annual report on global religious freedom last month, the US state department criticised the Muslim bloc for using the United Nations to “export” anti-blasphemy laws found in some of its member countries to the international level. >>> James Reinl, United Nations Correspondent | October 29, 2008

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If the Light Goes Out Stateside, the Light Goes Out for Us All!
There is no doubt that the USA is going through tough times; indeed, its very foundations are being rocked – financial and economic. Indeed, it could be argued that capitalism, the US’s raison d’être is being challenged profoundly. The current president, George W Bush, has only added to America’s problems. He has been a disaster for America. It is time for him to retire. And retire he will – shortly.

The recent débâcle with the USA’s most prestigious financial institutions either going to the wall, or having to be all but nationalized has only added to America’s woes.

It is a national disgrace that this profligate president has brought the once proud nation almost to its knees. America’s national debt is at an all time high: more than three trillion dollars, and still counting. Since 2001, a spurious war on terrorism has been fought, mostly in vain, since terrorism is not the ailment; rather it is a symptom of a far greater malady, namely Islam itself. It is rather like a medical consultant trying to treat the symptoms of cancer without excising the underlying cause: the tumour itself!

The US economy, totally deregulated as it has been since the era of Reagan, has succumbed to the worst of man’s faults and weaknesses: Greed. The people working on Wall Street, as in the City of London, have been paying themselves bonuses in Monopoly figures: Millions here, and tens of millions there. The result is there for all to see: The economic system has all but collapsed; and the American taxpayer is now being asked to pick up the tab.

It’s a disgrace. Nothing short of a national disgrace. There is simply no reason why the American taxpayer should bail out the bankers and financiers of Wall Street, with all their greediness and excesses. They certainly should not be expected to pay for the bonuses of these greedy and unprincipled people. They should be allowed to perish, as should the institutions they worked for.

The bail-out is flawed to its very core. When people in America are going hungry, and when more than forty million people there cannot afford healthcare, there is something very flawed in a bail-out plan which cossets the very people who have caused the near collapse of the capitalist system.

Yet, for all the flaws of the capitalist system, we have nothing better with which to replace it. It is an imperfect system to be sure; but it’s the very best system man has ever been able to come up with. We must nurture it; and we must certainly be careful that we do not lose it.

America is no paradise on earth; America’s sidewalks are not paved with gold. America is as flawed as anywhere else on earth. Yet America has given the world something which the rest of the world has been unable to give people. It has given them hope and freedom – the hope to aspire to a better life; and the freedom to live without fear. How many other countries can say the same?

America has been a beacon of freedom for a couple of centuries. People have for centuries flocked there in their droves, in search of a better life. As a result, America has become a hub of creativity, for nothing fosters creativity more than freedom of thought and freedom of expression.

Yet, we are living through very difficult times. So many, worldwide, are gloating in the difficulties that America is now experiencing. When the US was attacked on September 11, 2001, few could have imagined the success that OBL would have had by flying planes into the Twin Towers in New York. Indeed, OBL couldn’t have dreamed of a better outcome from this attack. He wanted to bring the USA to its knees; and to its knees it has just about brought it.

But if anyone out there is happy about this, then his happiness is totally misplaced; and for one simple reason: If America is no longer to be the world’s superpower, then the world will fall into darkness.

Why? Because the US has guaranteed freedom not only for itself, but also for much of the rest of the world. Which other country in the world could do this? Russia certainly couldn’t. In Russia, one goes against the political system at one’s own peril. Ask the once richest man of Russia, Mikhail Khodorkovsky! He’ll tell you the price he has had to pay for perceived criticism of the system, and for political activity in a country which understands neither democracy nor freedom.

In a silly article asking who else would be up to replacing America’s hegemony, SpiegelOnline International posed the question who could take over from America’s pole position. The answer is no-one! Which other country could guarantee us all such freedoms? Which other country would be so generous with its resources? Which other country would come to aid all in time of need?

Where would Germany be today without the aid of America after the Second World War? And where would Britain be today without America’s help in that very same war? Indeed, how free would Europe be today without the the help of the generous, oh so generous Americans?

America, and the rest of the West, is under threat from the Islamic world; indeed, our great Judeo-Christian civilization could go under because of the threat of Islam. Islam is not only knocking at our door, it is already within, and is out to destroy everything we in the West stand for: Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of religion, or the freedom to choose none, freedom of sexual expression, and freedom in so may other ways, too. Yet only the few are listening! Only the few are taking these threats to our liberties seriously.

For most people, these threats are but abstract, distant possibilities; yet they are not. They are anything but. They are very real. Muslims are here in the West; and many of them – though certainly not all – are out to destroy everything Western. They must NEVER be allowed to achieve their goals. We must this resist attack with every fibre of our beings. We must OVERCOME!

If we do not, the West will be taken into a New Dark Age. The way of life that will ensue will be one which will be quite unlike the way of life we have come to know, understand, appreciate, and love. It will be a repressive way of life – repressive for women, repressive for infidels, repressive for Christians, repressive for Jews, repressive for homosexuals, repressive, indeed, for all except Muslims.

If we are to fight this darkness, it is imperative that the United States be kept strong, and buoyed up. The United States needs to be strong militarily, financially, and economically, for without a strong United States, there is little hope for a free world. Little hope for liberty. If the light goes out Stateside, the light goes out for us all!

©Mark Alexander

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