Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Free Geert Wilders

Please Help!


A list of all Dutch embassies and consulates abroad can be found at the following url:http://www.embassiesabroad.com/embassies-of/Netherlands#668


We strongly recommend that as many of you that have wide-spread contact lists, urge your friends and readers, to look up the relevant embassy in their home country, or in as many countries as they can handle, and write/fax/email the Ambassador and/or Consular staff on the travesty of Geert Wilders’ upcoming trial on January 20 2010.


There are fax numbers, addresses and in many cases, email addresses in the above list that can be used with great results.


You may want to mention the following 2-3 main points to be addressed:


- We note that Holland has always been a staunch ally of the West in its protection of Free Speech, now however, it seems that the old traditions have been abolished


- We abhor the decision of the Dutch Government and Justice Minister E.M.H. Hirsch Ballin to prosecute Hon Geert Wilders for hate speech on January 20 2010


- We urge the Government to immediately drop all charges and FREE GEERT WILDERS

7 comments:

Sense said...

Geert Wilders does not have to be freed because he is not in jail. Last night you could see him spitting out non-sense in our Lower House if you'd turned on the Dutch television.

The fact that everyone is free to sue someone when he or she feels that he or she was maltreated is a freedom. I would wait with saying the (seemingly) Dutch tradition of freedom has been 'abolished' until the verdict has been read. If you trust that Geert Wilders has done nothing wrong -- which I doubt you can know surely in a country where news broadcasters like Fox News confuse the Amsterdam Palace of Justice with the Dutch Parliament, which is in The Hague.

Being tried can hardly be a travesty, being sentenced when you've done nothing wrong is. However, hate speech can be really dangerous -- look at previous examples in the European history to see why -- especially considering the influence Geert Wilders seems to have on members of the extreme-right -- nazi-like -- groups that provided a great deal of support for his party when it was launched.

Oh, and by the way, Holland hasn't existed since the Napoleonic era, when the French forces ended the Dutch Republic and split Holland, one of the seven states, into two separate provinces. The correct name for our country is the Netherlands.

Pastorius said...

Hi Sense,
I get your point. However, when you say this: "The fact that everyone is free to sue someone when he or she feels that he or she was maltreated is a freedom. "


I just have to point out, Wilders is not being sued. He is being prosecuted by the government for hate speech.

The government itself brought the suit, not some wayward individual.

How would you like to have to defend yourself against a charge of hate speech.

This is a historical event, that a nations leading politician (in terms of the support of the electorate) would be brought up on trial for "hate speech".

If you study the fatwas (and fatwas are not all death threats, instead they are religious rulings) of Imams the world over, you would find that the Jihadist/Sharia-based worldview is very prevalent in the Islamic world. Muslims really do believe that homosexuals and apostates and adulterers ought to be put to death for their "crimes". And, they really do believe that women are worth half that of a man in a court of law.

It really is dangerous to import people who harbor such beliefs. They don't drop them when they move into the Western world. They continue on.

Polls in Britain have shown that when 40% of Muslims want Sharia law in Britain.

It's the same in your country. Of that you can be reasonably sure.

Sense Hofstede said...

I wouldn't say Geert Wilders has a support from the majority of the election. There are 11 parties in the Netherlands than are in are in parliament, and some more that don't have enough support.

Currently Geert Wilders has only 5.9% of the votes, in the polls is is only 16.2%. That is a lot and makes him the second party in the polls, but that doesn't mean he's got support from the largest part of the electorate. I'd dare to say that there are more people in the Netherlands who'd vote against him than people who'd vote for him.

But that's not the point here. The point is that someone's being prosecuted because of hate speech. Although I'm against the law article we have that makes blasphemy under certain circumstances illegal -- don't ask me when exactly, it's pretty vague -- I do think that hate speech should be watched. However, only in severe circumstances it should be punishable.

It was not the Dutch administration that prosecuted Geert Wilders, it was our equivalent of the Attorney general, the Public Ministry/Department, which sues whenever it deems it justifiable. They are independent of the government and even sometimes collide with their interests. It makes therefore no sense to complain at the Dutch embassies, the Dutch government simply has had no control over the decision to prosecute. It would be travesty if they would have had, but they haven't.

Pastorius said...

Sense,
You said:
Currently Geert Wilders has only 5.9% of the votes, in the polls is is only 16.2%. That is a lot and makes him the second party in the polls ...


I say: Oh, I got that wrong. By the way, I didn't say he had a majority. I said he was the nations leading politician. Apparently, he is, at this point, the nations second leading politician.

I had been led to understand that, were he to be elected according to current polling, he would be made prime minister, because his coalition would be the largest.

That's why I called him "the nations leading politician".


You said: "It was not the Dutch administration that prosecuted Geert Wilders, it was our equivalent of the Attorney general, the Public Ministry/Department, which sues whenever it deems it justifiable. They are independent of the government ..."


I say: That does not compute for an American. I don't even begin to understand how you can have someone who is the equivalent of an "Attoney General", yet who is not considered part of the Dutch Government.

Our Attorney General is part of the Executive Administration.

Anyone who is part of the Executive, Judicial, or Legislative branches, are considered part of the government of our country, whether it be on the state or Federal level.

And, if any one of these failed to comport themselves in a moral manner, it WOULD make sense to complain to the American Embassy.

Sense Hofstede said...

Even though he's currently the largest or the second largest party -- it differs per week -- in the Netherlands, a majority of the Dutch population would rather not have him as a prime-minister.

Furthermore, the prime-minister in the Netherlands isn't chosen by the people, the winning party appoints a new administration leader, who goes to the queen to put together an administration. If he ever wanted to achieve something in parliament he'd have to have a majority, otherwise the parliament could send his administration back home.
In order to get a government you need to negotiate with other parties and reach comprises. Most Dutch parties already said they refuse to cooperate with Geert Wilders in one administration and Geert Wilders himself isn't known for being good at compromises or coming up with substantial plans -- e.g., when his party proposed a tax on head scarves, other MPs asked him to propose a law (the parliament can create laws) it turned out it was just senseless humbug.
It will probably end with Geert Wilders having to 'hand back his mandate to the queen' -- as it's formally called -- and the mandate being given to the second largest party.
If he does dare to have a minority administration he'll be probably be kicked out of office very soon.

If you want some better news coverage on Geert Wilders I would suggest to go to . The occasional news message in the American paper doesn't provide a good overview.

However, please don't think that I think that Geert Wilders should be put in jail for one year. That would make no sense and only outrage his electorate more. The fact that he compares the Koran to Mein Kampf doesn't scare or anger me, it scares me that so many people think it makes sense.
I would wait with a verdict on the state of Dutch tolerance until the judge has spoken; we don't have minimum verdicts in the Netherlands, and even if Geert Wilders is convicted I doubt it will be anything more than a fine.

The fact that you don't want to comprehend that the Public Attorney Ministry(it's not just one person) isn't controlled by our administration and that our Minister of Justice doesn't control it doesn't make it less true.

Sense Hofstede said...

You can interpret the Bible the same way as you're interpreting the Koran. The fact that some people use verses from this book to convince people to do their dirty work doesn't mean the book is bad or all readers of that book are bad.

Another interesting fact: the Public Ministry(Attorney) didn't want to prosecute Geert Wilders at first, but was forces by the Court of Amsterdam. However, they might plead not guilty tomorrow when the trial starts.

Pastorius said...

Sense,
Yes, you're right, because the Bible does call for killing adulterers, gays, and apostates.

However, isn't it interesting that Christians and Jews the world over do not do that?

That is not by accident.

The Jews have subtly thought through and interpreted the Torah, through the Oral Torah and the Talmud.

Jesus' ideas are incompatible with a Taliban-type interpretation of the Bible.

But, Jesus was not the first Jew to espouse the ideas he espoused.

By the time he came along, many Jews had already reached the same conclusions in their nuanced interpretations.

Religions, Cultures, and political systems ought to be judged by what they produce.

Islamic Culture produces overwhelming barbarity, poverty, illiteracy, ignorance, lack of innovation, lack of productity, etc.

Read the United Nations Developing Nations Report on the Arab World

http://www.arab-hdr.org/

http://arabstates.undp.org/subpage.php?spid=14