A few months ago, the British government denied entry to Geert Wilders, the Dutch parliamentarian, who was scheduled to show his 15-minute film about Islam, Fitna, which intersperses selected excerpts from the Koran with clips showing violent acts by radical Islamists. Nazir Ahmed, a Muslim member of the House of Lords who was born in Pakistan, raised a hue and cry. The British Foreign Ministry collapsed and kicked Wilders out as soon as he got off the plane. He was, the British border agency said, a threat to harmony and public security.
Laughable, yes. But now, the French may join the campaign against Wilders. The French Association for The Defense of Human Rights wants French authorities to prosecute Wilders for “hate speech.” AEDH cites a speech he gave at the Hudson Institute in New York in September, which was part of Wilders’ truth-telling crime spree. If convicted, Wilders could face a year in prison.
The French have long been prosecuting those who speak against Islamic hegemony. Over the last 12 years, Brigitte Bardot, the sex siren and screen actress, has been convicted five times for “inciting racial hatred” and paid ten of thousands of dollars in fines for opposing Islam’s march over France.
Wilder’s “hate speech”? “Paris is now surrounded by a ring of Muslim neighborhoods,” he said. “Many neighbourhoods in France are no-go areas for women without head scarves.” He also called the Muslim riots that sent France up in flames in 2005 a “Muslim intifada.” Citing a Pew Center survey, he said French Muslims support suicide bombing.
Just for the record, here are a few more of his remarks: “There are now thousands of mosques throughout Europe…. And in every European city there are plans to build super-mosques that will dwarf every church in the region. Clearly, the signal is: we rule.” Amsterdam, Marseille, and Malmo are 25-percent Islamic, he reported and “in many cities the majority of the under-18 population is Muslim.” The school systems in Europe are changing to accommodate Muslim sensibilities, and “the history of the Holocaust can in many cases no longer be taught because of Muslim sensitivity. In England sharia courts are now officially part of the British legal system.” How bad is the problem? “A total of fifty-four million Muslims now live in Europe. San Diego University recently calculated that a staggering 25 percent of the population in Europe will be Muslim just 12 years from now. Bernard Lewis has predicted a Muslim majority by the end of this century.”
A Muslim lawyer for the AEDH explained why Wilders must be silenced: “A politician may express his idea. But Wilders makes dangerous statements about something of which he has no understanding. These are not political ideas, but insults and prejudices.”
The only thing “dangerous” about Wilders is that he tells the truth about radical Islamists and their crimes. Not least of them was the murder of film director Theo Van Gogh in Amsterdam because he made a 10-minute film called Submission, which documents Islam’s inherent and Koranically-sanctioned misogyny. The woman who made the film with him, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is also under the threat of death. Wilders himself lives under 24-hour guard for fear of the same penalty.
How the French would arrest a Dutch parliamentarian for “hate speech” is rather an amusing question. But Wilders’ cry in the wilderness isn’t amusing at all: Europe is dying.
Photo: AP Images
