The Show Trial of Geert Wilders – Part 2

Monday

The following was written by Babs Barron. If you missed Part 1, here it is. Both of these articles were originally published on FaithFreedom.org and are reprinted with permission.

The verdict is in. Geert Wilders, after a three ring circus of a trial in Amsterdam in which he stood accused of anti-Islam hate speech because he called for the Koran to be banned because of the hate speech and incitement to violence in it, just as Mein Kampf is banned in Holland, he has finally been acquitted of the charges against him.

The court ruled that his anti-Islam statements, while offensive to many Muslims, fell within the bounds of legitimate political debate.

Presiding judge Marcel van Oosten said Wilders' claims that Islam is violent by nature, and his calls to halt Muslim immigration and ban Muslim holy book the Koran, must be seen in a wider context of debate over immigration policy. The judge described statements about a "tsunami" of immigrants as "crude and denigrating", but legally legitimate given the wider context and his acknowledgement that those who integrate are acceptable and do not call for violence.

The Amsterdam court said his public statement could not be directly linked to increased discrimination against Dutch Muslims. It found that Wilders' rhetoric was "on the edge of what is legally permissible" but not illegal.

As regards Wilders' 2008 film, Fitna, the judgement said, "Given the film in its whole (sic) and the context of societal debate, the court finds that there is no question of inciting hate with the film...”

The specific charges against Wilders were:

Intentionally offending Muslims
Inciting hatred against Muslims
Inciting discrimination against Muslims
Inciting hatred of non-western immigrants

These have at least one aspect in common: They rely solely upon the subjective experience of those allegedly offended or hated, with the possible exception of the third above and even that is open to debate.

In short, the verdict's message is that just because a person may feel offended — and Islam is very ready to feel offended, even when it is exposed to the same criticisms levelled at other faith systems — this cannot necessarily mean that he/she has actually been offended.

That these charges, based on subjective experience as they were, represented the essentials of the case against Wilders and were nevertheless proceeded with at considerable cost to the Dutch taxpayer, highlights the difficulties faced by Western judicial systems in the face of the overemotional and exaggerated sense of entitlement of Islam to be treated as a special case.

Given the distinctly bizarre conduct of the trial, which I have described
elsewhere, the verdict is surprising indeed, for from the beginning it seemed that the court was determined to find Wilders guilty.

Whatever one may think of Wilders' politics there can be little doubt that he was singled out for particular opprobrium. Why? Because he dared openly to criticise what he sees as the malign influence of Islam in the West and particularly in his native Holland, as evidenced by more vocal Muslims' slavish adherence to its hate-filled scriptures.

It is customary for western media, most of which have lost touch with reality or any sense of ethics, to inveigh against the influence of the so-called Jewish/Zionist lobby but why is it that we hear not one peep from them about the Muslim lobby whose influence seems so strong in Holland that a democratic legal system continued to persecute Wilders? If the travesty which passed for Wilders' trial was not unduly influenced by Muslim pressure, then why had the Dutch judiciary taken leave of its collective senses to persist in this venture?

Could it have been to open the charges to such scrutiny (sunlight, of course, being the best disinfectant) and to create such a strong precedent that no future legal action based on beliefs-as-facts rather than on objective evidence and based on the Muslim hair-trigger sense of grievance and their demand to be treated as a special case rather than to take their place among other citizens of Holland and to be treated only as fairly as those other citizens are treated, can ever again see the light of day in a Dutch court?

Or could it simply have been that the very conduct of the trial rendered a "guilty" verdict untenable and it would very easily be overturned on the appeal which would surely follow?

I would welcome readers' opinions.

This verdict, although eminently sensible and just, is but a small victory in the battle against Islamist and other supremacist belief systems. In spite of it there can be no doubt that double standards still prevail in the West as regards the licence afforded to Islam to insult and deride other faiths or beliefs without let or hindrance, as opposed to the iron fist which could descend if any in the UK for example should ever criticise Islam in the way in which Wilders did.

All Western governments, and European governments in particular, have been groomed into fear of giving offence by the overreaction of Muslims to any perceived criticism. The more cunning among Muslim leaders will continue play upon the emotional discomfort of our politicians' cognitive dissonance and their fear of being thought to be politically incorrect, which confuses and prevents them from speaking out against Islamic excesses and overinflated sense of entitlement.

Thus, bit by bit, Islam will still try to make our laws malleable to suit its purpose. It has been allowed to do that because of the cowardice of our leaders in the face of threats of violence, their lack of understanding of the true meaning of
multiculturalism, and their woeful naiveté in failing to perceive Islam's true intentions even when these are being played out before them.

Although the verdict has set a welcome precedent for the right to freedom of expression in Europe and in the West, I believe that there is still a long way to go before the overinflated demands of Islam, which it believes it has the right to impose on the rest of us, can be contained. We dare not take our eye off the ball. We need to remind our leaders of the outcome of this trial and of the money wasted in the continuing of it against the advice of prosecution counsel, whenever they attempt to silence justified criticism in future of Islam's attitude to other faiths, to its women, and of its exaggerated sense of entitlement and hair-trigger sense of grievance.

8 comments:

Tom, UK 6:22 AM  

So we're not doomed yet - free speech is in our nature in the west and the acquittal hopefully shows that we're not going to give it up any time soon.

This is a victory for freedom - but will the battle ever be over?

Anonymous 11:55 AM  

We certainly do not dare to take our eyes off the ball as Babs Barron says.

Especially on our Western pre-disposition for "White Guilt" and "the guilt of colonialism" in the US and Europe respectively.

This all helps the Islamists.

With respect to the "White Guilt" phenomenon in the US, the one superb achievement of Roman times was that Roman citizens had equal rights regardless. For those days it was remarkable!

Thus in time Roman Emperors came from the ranks of "non-Roman" peoples, especially from Germanics.

Since Roman times the only civilization that has achieved a similar level of citizenship is the West, especially in the US.

Today an African American is President of the US and the First Lady is also an African American ... democratically!!!

Not even the Indians were able to to achieve this - Sonia Gandhi, Italian born and by now as committed an Indian as any other Indian could not be made head of state of India because she is 'white'!

The heroic African American medic who tried to save the life of the Hispanic soldier in the documentary by Vaughan Smith on chopper medivacs in Afghanistan is another example of the buy in that America exemplifies. That brave medic considers himself first and foremost an American! Why? Because he is a full blown American!

(By the way, that disgustingly perverse 'journalist', Vaughan Smith, with a NATO liberated Kosovo wife alongside him in his bed every night, argues that ISAF (aka NATO) medivac choppers should be considered fair game to shoot down!)

Race nor religion is an obstacle to citizenship in the US.

That is the grandeur of Western Civilization and White Guilt is a mind sickness that needs to be overcome before we make ourselves more vulnerable to the primal religio-barbarism of Islam, as deceitful Islamists leverage off our paralysing 'guilt' and try to turn the West into a land of head-chopping, limb cutting, and stoning (aka Sharia).

Anonymous 1:03 AM  

In Shehrbano Taseer we have an emerging hero.

Like her father, Salmaan Taseer, the late Governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan.

http://www.nwasianweekly.com/2011/06/slain-pakistani%E2%80%99s-daughter-takes-up-his-cause/

Salmaan, a Muslim, was opposed to the blasphemy laws in Pakistan.

He paid the full price for this – killed by an extremist who was showered with rose petals by religious zombies, including lawyers!

Salmaan must have felt, deep down in his DNA, that something was wrong with the blasphemy laws.

He tried to argue that that was not Islam – like his brave daughter seeks to do now.

What we have here are human minds that despite having been exposed to a mind disease like Islam are resistant to this malady.

They just feel that something is not right and even if they try (futilely) to find the answer in the Koran they can only but be admired for their humanity.

Yes, Salmaan Taseer is a Giant of Humanity, a Light that cut through the savage primal Darkness of Islam.

And his daughter is emerging as one too, bravely forging ahead despite the death threats against her.

I salute them … they represent the Stuff of Humanity.

Amit 10:49 PM  

a long way to go as its said by Civilun Defendus:

Islam is supremacist in nature, discriminatory in practice, restricts freedom of thought and action and violates universal human rights. Muslim-Muslim relations are completely separate from Muslim-kafir relations, where deceit is sanctioned. Islam is incompatible with our values and sensibilities of freedom and secularism. Islam will only appear peaceful when it is weak; given strength and power it will crush kafirs/infidels.

No matter the temperament of individual Muslims, the Islamic community as a whole, the ‘ummah’ drives the process of Islamization in every country where Islam thrives. Political correctness is used to advantage. Islam and it tenets are the antithesis of our country’s history and free thinking traditions.

Amit 10:50 PM  

Islam makes political aims a religious duty.

very imp point

Anonymous 3:06 AM  

With the Circus of Useful Idiots from as far away as Canada about to set off from Greece in yet another Gaza Aid Flotilla:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/hamas-slams-greece-for-blocking-departure-of-gaza-bound-flotilla-1.370839

we have our work cut out for us if we are to stop more of the Geert Wilders show trials.

Not even the execution by Islamists of an Italian Useful Idiot, Vic, who should rather have stayed home in Civilization and enjoyed the Serenity of Life that the beautiful Italian Culture can provide will stop them from being conned and embarking on yet another Islamic manipulation of Westerners.

Anonymous 2:04 AM  

The very fact that in western Europe 'intentionally offending' can be grounds for a trial, just shows that we Europeans have already lost so much of our historical character (thanks to grand socialist ideologies) that we may never reclaim the things that once made us great. Of course, the USA is on the same journey.

Truthiocity 5:04 AM  

I do not understand how offending someone, even intentionally, can be against the law. In order for it to be punishable it must be provable.

But it's impossible to prove that you have experienced the wholly subjective phenomena of being offended.

Indeed, claiming that you are owed social, financial or judicial recompence for being offended is akin to fraud.

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