Wilders acquitted on all counts
Pro-Israel Dutch politician Geert Wilders was acquitted on Friday of all charges in his trial for 'inciting' against Muslims. Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.So can Wilders' party now be made a member of the coalition, or are they still obligated to only support it from the outside due to the political correctness of other coalition members?
They said comments about banning the Koran can be discriminatory, but because Wilders wants to pursue a ban on democratic lines, there is no question of incitement to discrimination 'as laid down in law'.
On the comparison of the Koran with Mein Kampf, the prosecutors said the comparison was 'crude but that did not make it punishable'.
Dealing earlier on Friday with incitement to hatred, Van Roessel and Velleman said some comments could incite hatred against Muslims if taken out of context, but if the complete text is considered, it can be seen that Wilders is against the growing influence of Islam and not against Muslims per sé.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:13 AM
2 Comments:
Its a good day for freedom of speech in Europe.
Telling the truth about the extremist nature of Islam shouldn't be a crime.
As well resisting its attempts to impose its radical anti-democratic ideology and discriminatory legislation upon our Western civilization.
We should have the right to say "NO." Geert Wilders simply chose to exercise it.
Well, as the old saying goes, the show's not over until the fat lady sings. The fat lady in this case being the judges on the case. In the European inquisitorial system, the judge acts (in effect) as both prosecutor and jury. The judges can still find Wilder guilty of the charges even though the prosecutors say he's not. The prosecutors themselves originally refused to bring the case but were _ordered_ to do so by the judge. Now that they have gone through the little two-step of bringing the case but then concluding that he isn't guilty, the judges can still say that he is guilty and, presumably, punish him. Maybe they won't, but it's really just a matter of their sheer will power and willingness to go against the Dutch people including the prosecutors themselves.
This is all incomprehensible to an American, but that's the way it evidently is.
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