Free Speech GEERT WILDERS TRIAL

BENJAMIN WEINTHAL: WILDERS’ CASE A LITMUS TEST FOR FREE SPEECH…….

Indeed, the European Liberal Left (ELL) has been eerily quiet over the right of Geert Wilders to speak his mind concerning the ideology of Islam. It would seem that for the ELL, the right to free speech only matters when it’s the issues that they are concerned with and promote, not those with whom they disagree. KGS

Geert Wilders: A Free-Speech Litmus Test
October 12, 2010 5:06 P.M.
By Benjamin Weinthal

Berlin — Holland’s judicial campaign to strip Geert Wilders of his right to engage in ruthless polemical and intellectual criticism of Islam reached today its final prosecution phase. A hypersensitive and overly politically and socially correct Dutch legal system charged Wilders, the head of the Freedom Party, with incitement to hate because he has argued, for example, that Islam is animated by the same strand of totalitarianism as the other bloody –isms, fascism and Communism.
The Wilders case embodies the key Western litmus test for lively free-speech rights, and, predictably, there has been, for the most part, an eerie silence across Europe. Free-speech absolutists on the European liberal Left are terribly uninterested in flexing their political muscle to defend Wilders’s rights. It is a depressing time for the advocates of robust free speech in Europe.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who had to flee the Netherlands because Dutch Islamists were seeking to literally annihilate her, captured in the Wall Street Journal what the Wilders case means for human freedom. The Islam expert Daniel Pipes issued a call of solidarity with Wilders at the outset of 2010 (“Why I Stand with Geert Wilders”), and his text resonates even more as 2010 reaches its end.

2 Responses

  1. I'm am glad Geert has chosen to remain silent. His silence represents the citizens of Europe who will also be forced – by the state – to remain silent or face jail.

Leave a Reply to KGS Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.