The Honorable Geert Wilders & FITNA

PARIS – A French rights group said Tuesday it was suing Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders for inciting racial hatred for a speech in which he said that Paris was "encircled by Muslim districts".

The Association for the Defence of Human Rights said its lawsuit centred on a speech made in New York last year by Wilders, who is facing trial in the Netherlands for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims.

It says Wilders also said in his address there that "numerous areas (in France) were no-go zones for women not wearing headscarves."

Wilders added that "in France, teachers are asked to avoid authors considered offensive towards Muslims, including Voltaire and Diderot".

The rights group's lawyer Yassine Bouzrou told AFP that "the remarks made by Mr. Wilders target a specific community, Muslims, and that comes within the context of inciting racial hatred."

Wilders, head of the Freedom Party which has nine seats in the Dutch parliament, has called for the banning of the Koran in the Netherlands, calling it "fascist".

His film, Fitna, which likens Islam to Nazism and juxtaposes images of the September 11 attacks with pictures of the Koran, Islam's holy book, was called "offensively anti-Islamic" by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

Immigration officials in the UK sent Wilders home on his arrival in London in February. British authorities said he was turned back to stop him spreading "hatred and violent messages".

He had been invited to screen his 17-minute film in the House of Lords, Britain's unelected upper chamber of parliament. The private screening later went ahead in his absence.

_{by RNW News
25-03-2009}

The two parties argue that Mr Wilders is an obvious choice to take part in the conference, following Britain's refusal to let him enter the country, and the fact that his life has been threatened by Muslim fundamentalists.

Another point of view

However, the Liberal Alliance Party, the smallest in the Danish parliament, which is co-organising the conference with the Danish Peoples' Party, strongly disagrees and is planning to block the invitation. The party's chairman, Anders Samuelson, told the Politiken newspaper that We don't want to make this conference into some sort of freak show, to which we simply call in those who can create most trouble on the streets, simply to show how brave we are.

Mr Samuelson added that I can't see that Wilders can offer anything constructive in relation to the situation we currently have here in Denmark. We don't need to debate whether we support the freedom of speech. We do. And that's it. All of us.

But Naser Khader of the Conservative Party disagrees, saying If we all agreed on freedom of speech, there would be no reason to hold the conference. The point is that we have a problem in that some people want to limit freedom of speech globally. If it is not a problem for freedom of speech that England has refused entry to a member of parliament of another EU country, then I don't understand anything. Denmark's Integration Minister Birth Rønn Hornbech has so far declined to comment on the matter.

Freedom Party leader Geert Wilders made a controversial film last year equating Islam with violence and has likened the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

In a democratic system, hate speech is considered so serious that it is in the general interest to... draw a clear line, the court in Amsterdam said.

Mr Wilders said the judgement was an "attack on the freedom of expression".

"Participation in the public debate has become a dangerous activity. If you give your opinion, you risk being prosecuted," he said.

Not only he, but all Dutch citizens opposed to the "Islamisation" of their country would be on trial, Mr Wilders warned.

"Who will stand up for our culture if I am silenced?" he added.

The three judges said that they had weighed Mr Wilders's "one-sided generalisations" against his right to free speech, and ruled that he had gone beyond the normal leeway granted to politicians.

This is a happy day for all followers of Islam who do not want to be tossed on the garbage dump of Nazism.

"The Amsterdam appeals court has ordered the prosecution of member of parliament Geert Wilders for inciting hatred and discrimination, based on comments by him in various media on Muslims and their beliefs," the court said in a statement.

"The court also considers appropriate criminal prosecution for insulting Muslim worshippers because of comparisons between Islam and Nazism made by Wilders," it added.

The court's ruling reverses a decision last year by the public prosecutor's office, which said Mr Wilders's comments had been made outside parliament as a contribution to the debate on Islam in Dutch society and that no criminal offence had been committed.

Prosecutors said on Wednesday that they could not appeal against the judgement and would open an investigation immediately.

Gerard Spong, a prominent lawyer who pushed for Mr Wilders's prosecution, welcomed the court's decision.

"This is a happy day for all followers of Islam who do not want to be tossed on the garbage dump of Nazism," he told reporters.

In March 2008, Mr Wilders posted a film about the Koran on the internet, prompting angry protests across the Muslim World.

The opening scenes of Fitna - a Koranic term sometimes translated as "strife" - show a copy of the holy book followed by footage of the bomb attacks on the US on 11 September 2001, London in July 2005 and Madrid in March 2004.

Pictures appearing to show Muslim demonstrators holding up placards saying "God bless Hitler" and "Freedom go to hell" also feature.

The film ends with the statement: "Stop Islamisation. Defend our freedom."

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said at the time that the film wrongly equated Islam with violence and served "no purpose other than to offend".

A year earlier, Mr Wilders described the Koran as a "fascist book" and called for it to be banned in "the same way we ban Mein Kampf", in a letter published in the De Volkskrant newspaper.

Mr Wilders has had police protection since Dutch director Theo Van Gogh was killed by a radical Islamist in 2004.

Correspondents say his Freedom Party (PVV), which has thirty-two MPs in the lower house of parliament, has built its popularity largely by tapping into the fear and resentment of Muslim immigrants.

_{By Robert Marquand |
Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor,
from the March 26, 2008 edition}

The Hague - It's a lurking provocation in Europe's sometimes rocky encounter with its burgeoning Muslim population: For months, a popular, flamboyant far-right Dutch party leader has been preparing an incendiary film about Islam rumored to contain lurid scenes of execution and a flaming Koran. With his flashy dyed platinum hair and his 24-hour security protection, Geert Wilders routinely compares the Koran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf," says almost all terrorists are Muslims, and advocates deporting Islamic clerics.

So it isn't surprising that the short film – which has yet to secure an outlet that will air it – is being compared to Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad that sparked global Muslim riots two years ago. Iran and Pakistan have condemned the video, titled "Fitna" – Arabic for strife.

The Taliban has threatened retaliation against Dutch troops in Afghanistan.

"Fitna" has so far been the biggest show never seen, but the buildup has given Mr. Wilders growing publicity, and civic leaders time to respond.

Unlike Denmark, which held to a free speech position on the cartoons, the Dutch government has been telling Muslim nations and Islamic organizations that it doesn't agree with Wilders's views. The main question that has emerged in the debate is whether it is acceptable for an elected official to use free speech to attack the identity of other groups, even if he or she feels they are causing harm to the Netherlands.

I don't care if someone hates Islam, says Tafiq Ali, a young Muslim from Morocco who works in a construction firm in Amsterdam. But is it responsible for a leader to use words that can bring hate and negative consequences?

Since January, Wilders has tried – and failed – to air Fitna on Dutch TV and then at The Hague's foreign press center. This week Wilders's backup, a US-based website, was shut down by the hosting service Network Solutions, pending an investigation of its acceptable use policy.

Tuesday, the right-wing Czech National Party proposed broadcasting Fitna, citing the cowardice of Dutch and EU politicians. Wilders said he might resort to handing out DVDs in central Amsterdam.