In a victory for free speech, Dutch politician Geert Wilders was finally acquitted in a Dutch court of whatever silly charges they brought against him in the first place for warning his people about the dangers of radical Islamic extremism in his country and Europe. They called it "hate speech".
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=576274&p=1
This entire episode made the nation of Holland look like a bunch of fools. It was a prosecution that never should have happened in the first place. God only knows how many guilders or Euros the Dutch spent on this exercise that could have taken the country back to the good old days of the German occupation.
To make matters worse, the first trial had to be scrubbed and a new trial ordered when one of the judges was found to have improperly tried to influence a witness to alter his testimony against Wilders' interests.
In addition, even though the prosecutors tried to throw in the towel and dismiss the charges, the judges ordered it to proceed. What a joke.
What is left now is for Wilders to organize his party and become prime minister of his country before they all destroy themselves.
8 comments:
thankfully human decency and respect for individual opinions prevailed over the great menace to free speech popularly known as political correctness.
It seems that Dutch law is not quite so loony and oppressive as it seemed. There are overzealous prosecutors in every system. That's why we insist on fair trials.
Wilders is now free to resume his spurious fearmongering. Hopefully, Dutch public opinion will be as quick to reject what he says as the court was to find it felonious that he said it.
Siarlys,
How much time have you spent in Europe in the past few years?
Buy me a ticket, Gary, and I'll be happy to go. Are you saying that the ONLY American citizens who are entitled to speak up (or even vote perhaps) on what our policies toward Europe should be, are those who have actually physically traveled there? Perhaps only people who have been to China are entitled to worry that it may come to dominate the Pacific in the next few decades?
Wilders appealed mightily to our First Amendment as a fig leaf for his naked xenophobia. That's enough reason for me, as a patriotic American, to comment on his travails.
Were those involved in the French resistance in WW 2 naked xenophobes too?
That wasn't xenophobia Gary. That was shooting back against an army that invaded their country, under arms, under military discipline, at the orders of a head of state.
As soon as it was all over, the French weren't too slow about developing trade relations with their former enemies. And the U.S. government compensated Ford Motor Co. for its investment in I.G. Farben, destroyed for some reason by the U.S. Air Force.
Talk about apples and oranges.
Gary, arguing with Siarlys is like arguing with some homeless person in a tin foil hat who knows everything about everything, despite being uneducated and not ever have done anything or been anywhere.
Ignorance is not a handicap for him.
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Geert Wilders acquitted -- until next time that is. I'm betting this isn't the last time Geert will be persecuted by the Muslo-nazi collaborators in the Dutch government/judiciary.
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