Europe News (DK) has an update on the on-going farce of a trial in Holland against Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, for hate speech and incitement-or whatever they are calling it. The European legal system, based on the Napoleanic Code,(highly favorable to the prosecution) is confusing to us Americans. Recently, prosecutors requested that Wilders be acquitted. The Judge refused, and from there, everything apparently went to Hell in a Dutch wooden shoe. Now a judge has been removed for improperly trying to influence a defense witness at a dinner party and it looks like a retrial is in order.
http://europenews.dk/en/node/36833
It does seem, however, that everday Europeans (unlike their spineless political leaders) are waking up and speaking out. On October 30, a rally against shariah encroachment will be held in Amsterdam's Museumplein (square).
(Europe News-DK)
By the way, you Americans who value free speech should be very interested in this trial. If you don't know who Wilders is, you should do some research. The outcome of this trial will say a lot about future freedom in Holland-and probably in Europe as well. You may not agree with Wilders or like him, but if he goes to prison, you should be very troubled.
You should pay more attention to what you post then. From the description of the video:
ReplyDelete"Demonstration for Freedom of Speech and against Expanding Sharia Laws in Europe
Organization : European Freedom Initiative*
*The European Freedom Initiative is an umbrella organization, whose members include, amongst others: ICLA (International), BPE (Peoples Movement Pax Europa, Germany), Politically Incorrect (Germany), EDL (England), LDF, Alliance to Stop Sharia, Actions SITA (France), DDL, Amsterdampost (Holland), Mission Europa - Netzwerk Karl Martell (Austria), Una Via per Oriana (Italy) and many others..."
Not to mention that it says "EDL" right in the title of the video.
ReplyDeleteOh stop it. If you look closer, you'll also see Gates of Vienna mentioned. Gates of Vienna is a blog which I link on my site. And there are no apologies.
ReplyDeleteBy everday Europeans, I refer, for example, to Swiss voters who said no to minarets.
Why don't you pick apart the message that is in the video?
You can't.
I don't need to pick it apart because any rational, thinking individual will see that it's nothing more than thinly veiled bigotry and hate. The same sort of garbage that was perpetrated against the Jews in early 20th century Europe.
ReplyDeleteThe vast majority of the Jewish people recognize this, which is why they've condemned hate groups like the EDL.
ReplyDelete1) I could care less about Wilders, a vicious little opportunist playing on fears (real as well as imagined), in the worst possible way.
ReplyDelete2) What he is charged with sounds like what we would call free speech, however despicable.
3) If we're not careful, that new interpretation of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act will take forms very similar to what is happening to Wilders.
4) Condemning Wilders is not comparable to Sharia as law, and wild paranoia about Sharia becoming law in countries where it has not historicality are way off base, whether Wilders is innocent or guilty.
5) Thank God I live in a country where people can build minarets, or congregational Christian churches, or put mezzuzahs on their door, or sacrifice chickens to the orishas, or...
I think "Anonymous" is actually Ted.
ReplyDeleteNo, we don't need to patronizingly call on whomever we deign to annoint as "decent Muslims" to "crack down on their own bad apples."
ReplyDeleteRather, Europeans need to call on their Muslim citizens not to offer solidarity in the name of religion to thugs who use that religious identity as a cover.
There is a difference. (Neither side of the equation is "we," speaking as one American citizen to another.)
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteIs that an oxymoron???
We should not do what the Europeans should do?
Huh?
No Gary, that is not an oxymoron. When you grow up and take advanced high school grammar classes, you will learn the meaning of big words like oxymoron.
ReplyDeleteYou are discussing events in Europe. No such events are happening here, because we have a First Amendment, and Europeans have nothing like it.
Since you are discussing events in Europe, you are not talking about what "we" Americans should do. You are talking about what "they" in Europe should do, friendly advice from a distant cousin across the Atlantic.
IF such events were happening here, which constitutionally they can't, then, and only then, "we" should handle things the same way as I suggest the Europeans should handle them.
Are you aware of the UN measure against defamation of religions? A creation of the 57 member Organ. of the Islamic Conference, it would ask member nations to ban speech against religion-in practice Islam.
ReplyDeleteIt's called creeping shariah. It's in Europe and its trying to come here too. That's the whole reason I keep track of developments in Europe.