... it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.... when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security.
Outrage: "Dutch Lawmaker, Charged With Insulting Islam, Fears Prison Sentence" by Joel Mowbray for FoxNews, January 22 (thanks to Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi):
A member of parliament in the Netherlands who has been charged with "insulting" Muslims says he fears he will be found guilty and sent to prison in only a few months.An appeals court on Wednesday overturned a previous decision by prosecutors not to charge Geert Wilders, and ordered that he stand trial.
"The decision of the court today was so strong that there is a real chance unfortunately that there will be a guilty verdict," Wilders told FOXNews.com. "In fact, it was so bluntly motivated that it already looks like a verdict instead of just ordering the public prosecutor to start a trial." [...]
A three-judge appeals panel on Wednesday ruled that Wilders' insults to Islam were so egregious that the principle of free speech was not sufficient defense.
"The court considers [Wilders' film] so insulting for Muslims that it is in the public interest to prosecute Wilders," a summary of the court's decision said. The court explained that Wilders' claims in "Fitna" and other media statements were "one-sided generalizations ... which can amount to inciting hatred."
Wilders on Wednesday defiantly stood by the public statements that could put him in prison.
"I lost my freedom already four and a half years ago in October 2004, when my 24-hour police protection started because of threats by Muslims in Holland and abroad to kill me," he said.
"So of course I don't want to go to jail as a criminal, but I don't fear losing my freedom since I already lost my freedom in 2004."
For several months, Wilders has been receiving pro bono assistance from a U.S.-based nonprofit called the Legal Project, whose aim is to protect free speech in what it says is a worldwide campaign to silence critics of "militant" Islam.
Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes founded the Legal Project following a slew of cases in which authors and activists were sued for alleged hate speech against Muslims and Islam, including several cases in the United States.
"The Legal Project helped me when I was in the United States, arranging meetings with important legal scholars and elected officials," Wilders told FOXNews.com. "They also helped bring public attention to my case, which hopefully will help me raise money for my legal defense fund."
Brooke Goldstein, a human rights attorney and director of the Legal Project, said Wilders' case indicates that free speech is increasingly under assault. "Geert Wilders could be going to jail for making admittedly harsh criticisms of Islam that actually echo statements made by Muslims," Goldstein said.
"Even if he prevails at trial, the damage to free speech will be done. Who wants to risk the time, cost and public harassment of a criminal trial?"
Goldstein said criminal prosecutions for hate speech or incitement are unlikely in the U.S. because of the First Amendment, but she said the mere threat of a lawsuit can stifle speech, especially when they concern corporations that must focus on turning a profit.
Even individuals participating in what they consider basic free-speech activities can find themselves in legal crosshairs, Goldstein said.
One Legal Project client is former CIA official and NYPD counterterrorism consultant Bruce Tefft, who was sued by a Muslim police officer for "workplace harassment" after he allegedly sent anti-Muslim e-mails to a voluntary recipient list of police officers.
Tefft is another man all free people should defend.
10 comments:
Google is giving me tons of grief tonight . . .with this message for any attempts to post comments
Please see Google's Terms of Service posted at http://www.google.com/terms_of_service.html
Evan Sayet's "Regurgitating the Apple: How Liberals think" full video presentation
"What happens is, they are indoctrinated into what I call a "cult of indiscriminateness." The way the elite does this is by teaching our children, starting with the very young, that rational and moral thought is an act of bigotry; that no matter how sincerely you may seek to gather the facts, no matter how earnestly you may look at the evidence, no matter how disciplined you may try to be in your reasoning, your conclusion is going to be so tainted by your personal bigotries, by your upbringing, by your religion, by the color of your skin, by the nation of your great-great-great-great-great grandfather's birth; that no matter what your conclusion, it is useless. It is nothing other than the reflection of your bigotries, and the only way to eliminate bigotry is to eliminate rational thought. There's a brilliant book out there called The Closing of the American Mind by Professor Allan Bloom. Professor Bloom was trying to figure out in the 1980s why his students were suddenly so stupid, and what he came to was the realization, the recognition, that they'd been raised to believe that indiscriminateness is a moral imperative because its opposite is the evil of having discriminated. I paraphrase this in my own works: "In order to eliminate discrimination, the Modern Liberal has opted to become utterly indiscriminate."
Who are you, Anonymous?
this is my fifth attempt at identifying myself as "HRW"
Hmm. YOu must be on Google's target list.
;-)
Welcome to the club your Highness
This story gives me nightmares. How quickly and easily this could happen in America if Americans don't wake up. I sent the video to everyone on my mail list and had my sons sit down with me and watch it again. The whole world has turned upside down and it seems like there is only a little while to right it again before it stays permanently upside down.
In Mary's Image,
I like the way you describe it, cuz that's how it feels to me, the world is inverted.
World War 1.
World War 2.
And now Europe (Netherlands) is going to allow the prosecution of one of Western Civilization's most heroic defenders in the twenty-first century, Geert Wilders. And what are they going to prosecute him for? Telling the unvarnished un-PC truth about a mortal threat to their very existence in an effort to save their sorry, undeserving asses from a fate worse than death.
Check your ancestral DNA, Geert. It's pretty obvious from this side of the pond that you descend from DANISH stock rather than Dutch.
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