Death to Free Speech in the Netherlands

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See, Joacqin, the problem with that is this:

"All Jews should die! They are filthy and dirty people, and you should kill them!" - hate speech

"Person X said, 'All Jews should die! They are filthy and dirty people, and you should kill them!' " - Not hate speech, but rather a quote of hate speech. Even adding, "This is evil, hateful speech" doesn't make it hate speech.

As to the real root of the problem, I may well believe you. As you pointed out, I'm not there and I don't know. That doesn't seem to have much to do with this case, though.

 

If poverty is the problem, then why do nations allow poor people to immigrate into their nation. It is starting to look like a form of national suicide. Shouldn't nations have the right to decide who can immigrate and who can't? Wouldn't the smart thing to do be to require immigrants to get a temporary visa and if they can't prove they are assimilating to the national culture it is revoked? I would think a nation should also prohibit immigrants from getting any form of public assistance during a probationary period.

 

A personal aversion to Wilders aside, my problem with him lies in his his sweeping claims about Islam, all of it. More on that below.

I disagree. In Germany hate speech, or rather 'Volksverhetzung', isn't limited to criminalising incitement to violence. Denigrating and defaming religions is covered by the same section of our criminal code, in the second paragraph. The third paragraph for instance penalises the denial that the holocaust did happen, also not an incitement to violence. If you know something about German history, you know why. Through that lens I view Wilders.

So yes, Wilders is not inciting to violence, but his statements about Muslims sure do defame the Islamic faith (as in 'Islam', and all its faithful instead of 'Islamic fundamental-ists/-ism' - vast difference religiously, or rather ideologically - and far less people, too) as universally evil or whatever else he chooses to call it. Wilders is just a xenophobic polemicist, and in generalising wildly, as he does, he only underlines that impression. I am all for that, as long as he doesn't violates the law, he is entitled to speak his mind. Point is, in my country he would with a high probability violate the law and thus forfeit the right to speak. It is ridiculous that US right wing blogs, and indeed FOXNews, style Wilders as a sort of martyr in the struggle against 'Islamofacism'. He is nothing of the sort.

That said, and it might have gotten lost in my elaborations on Wilders: There is a difference between calling something predictable and endorsing it. Death threats in reaction are unacceptable. If Wilders committed a crime, it is up to the state to punish him. That isn't up to individuals. And lest we forget: Death threats are a crime as well, and indeed the more serious one. We would not prosecute the former and forget about the latter.

We have a constitution and whoever thinks that he is above it doesn't deserve it's protections. That in particular applies to religious fundamentalists for whom nothing is greater than Islam (or any other persuasion for that), and to whom states and non-believers mean nothing. We have a few firebrand Muslim preachers here, and when it becomes known that they get out of line we deal with them by kicking them out if possible. Rightly so. One common problem in such proceedings, however, is that they often face torture or the death penalty in their home countries, making extradition illegal. Many Islamists are under observation by the Verfassungsschutz (~ MI5). We take Islamism quite seriously here.

That doesn't mean we give bigots like Wilders a pass only because he is remotley right on the subject, Islamism, when his actual conduct is a problem of another kind.

 

Ragusa, I understand your points which are well illustrated.
Based on our constitution, you are right:

"Artikel 4
(1) Die Freiheit des Glaubens, des Gewissens und die Freiheit des religiösen und weltanschaulichen Bekenntnisses sind unverletzlich.
(2) Die ungestörte Religionsausübung wird gewährleistet."

This translates roughly in all kinds of religious believes have to be protected, as it is similarly stated in many other democratic nations.

But what do you do if a religion in its roots violates certain areas of our constitution?
Islam certainly does.And clearly so.
Discrimination,call for persecution of people of other believes, and the list goes on.
This is, of course, if you take the Quran seriously word for word.
But a rising number of Muslims do so.
I think, this is what Wilders want us to warn from.
From a pollitical correct point of view, he had to point out, that a CERTAIN group of fanatics are the problem and not ALL people of Islam belief.

He sees, as I understand it, the root of the problem in the core Islam (the literal interpretation of the Quran).
As such he condemns Islam in general, not considering the masses of muslims
who don't take the Quran literally.

I see the dangers that are expressed in the Quran and tend to understand Wilder,
but I see your point as well.
I don't know where to put the frontiers.
On one hand protection of religious beliefs
on the other hand criticism of this belief based on ones own moral understanding.

 

Well worded -- particularily with AMasters example of the gangsters who beat me up because I tell them to go boink their mothers. No matter what I said, though, that wouldn't give them the LEGAL right to assault me -- they would, and if when we went to court they told the judge "he said bad words to us" I don't think it would fly.

Of course I use common sense with regards to my own safety and wouldn't go out of my way to make life difficult for another minority group, but if I say something like this:

"Wahhabi-esque Islam is a great danger to our society and we should do everything we can within the law to curb its influence on the young, as the violence and hate preached in Wahhabi mosques constitutes a direct threat to public safety -- we don't want suicide bombers in Canada."

and then some Muslim extremists run out and burn down a synagogue, am I responsible for their behaviour? I bloody well am not. The Muslim perpetrators are the only criminals in this case. Jounalists -- and everyone -- should be able to speak their minds without fear of reprisals or being blamed for the decisions of others.

Thanks for the extra info

 

These examples don't apply. And trying to use them makes you dishonest. Either they had nothing to do with religion, or there weren't any riots. Or do you want to call protests and demonstrations riots?

In the case of the caricatures, the "riots" - which were organized by those who get politcal advantages out of them - happened not in Europe.



@Hannibal: Where there any riots? And had that anything to do with religion?

It may be useful if you'd research them. Just making nebulous statements does not help.

First: that's a questionable source you got there. Second: This has nothing to do with religion.

 

I don't think you quite understand the historical or political context here, Ragusa explained it somewhat but I'd like to expand it a bit. Europe has had a problem with extremism since WWI and still has, this is something not equally present in America so I suppose it's difficult to understand, but there are groups in probably every country in Europe whose single goal it is to "purify" the race and send all people of different ethnicity packing to wherever they or their ancestors came from. In recent years this extreme right movement has started to become increasingly subtle and more "moderate" in its rethoric, preffering to leave out the more inflammatory parts. In core they are still the same though which becomes quite apparent if you ever visit their forums where particullary their younger members post.

So I'd like to stress that these laws have NOTHING to do with appeasing muslims. We have similar (in fact almost equal to the german one) in here and we have muslim minority of under one percent of the population which is neither vocal nor influential. This has everything to do with keeping the extreme right in check. You only need to go to Russia to see what kind of damage these groups do if they grow. When I visited Moscow I was told by a journalist who lives there that for someone who is not white it's downright dangerous to walk out at nights when the racist youth movements roam the city looking for a fight with everyone of different ethnicity.

 

http://europenews.dk/de/node/6145
http://www.welt.de/wams_print/article1658070/Ein_Stadtteil_steht_kopf.html

And since when, Fabius, did you mention the word 'religion' in your previous post to which I responded first?
It was all about protests from muslim migrants (riot or protest,imho the line between both words is floating so lets not nitpick on it,please).

edit:

But if you want 'religion':

look and watch for plenty of religious motivated text on the bills
one more.
This took me only 10 sec. of research.
If you want I can give you much more evidence.

edit2:
and here is defenitively 'riot', meaning violence involved:

quality of this one is poor, sadly.Molotov Cocktails are mentioned here which have been used by the protesters.

 

Geert Wilders caters to boundless and irrational feelings of hatred harboured mainly by the elderly, and population outside the cities, who like to hate muslims. They applaud every insulting and hateful claim that Wilders makes, and they even voted him into parliament. I'm glad I don't have any contact with these people, outside of some birthday parties, and funerals. Mr. Wilders hasn't studied, and is not an adequate politician. He's just a spin doctor, who preys on irrational emotions to steal votes. To say that this person is a frontline fighter, dedicated to protect our freedom of speech, is insulting. If anything, he is damaging and risking free speech, by inciting conflict and instability. Many have questioned his adequacy as a civil servant, because he doesn't seem to be serving society. When he accused the dutch parliament of a 'cordon sanitaire' to isolate him from decision making, I was happy that they were doing this, even expecting it from them.
The atmosphere between muslims and the original dutch has taken a serious turn for the worse since 2001, but neither can be blamed for that. Sure, the dutch gov't goes to some lengths to ensure stability in the country. For an american, any measure taken to accomodate muslims is one too many, but thankfully the dutch are not americans. Where do you guys get these ridiculous stories, like 'extradition to Jordan'? Did Fox's Bill o'Reilly give another 'expert' report on the crazy situation in Holland? You guys really need to question your news sources.
In the past, there was a more adequate spokesperson for anti-muslim sentiment in Holland, but he was assassinated by an insane dutch guy. His name was Pim Fortuyn, and he was a voice with some reason. Since his death, a number of followers have sought to continue his movement. Geert Wilders won out eventually, because he was the most irrational and extreme of them all.

 

'All kinds' goes too far. It is more subtle. Freedom of religion in Germany is a right for everybody, German nationals and foreign nationals. Freedom of religion covers the forum internum, the inner faith and the freedom of conscience, and the external aspects of the expression of faith and the religious exercise. Religious freedom cannot be infringed upon. Religious Freedom includes the negative freedom of holding no faith, that is, faith must not be mandatory.

However, it is inherently limited by the constitutional rights of others. That is so to not allow some to exercise their religion at the expense of others. A religious group which's teaching doesn't conform with that rule is bound to be declared 'verfassungsfeindlich', unconstitutional to use an American term. In fact, 'verfassungsfeindlich' literally means 'hostile to the constitutional order' even though 'irreconcilable with ...' would be more apt. That is btw. what happened to Kaplan's group.

You're sure that is Islam? Further, you're sure that's unique to Islam? I'd say that is true of all fundamentalist readings of nearly any religion (or non-religious ideology for that). And then, literalism isn't limited to Islam. Dominionist Evangelical Christians in the US sure do read a lot of violent and weird things out of the bible, stuff that I certainly can't find there, literalism notwithstanding. Or think of them fancying theocracy in the US lest 'God gets mad'. The problem to me appears to be not Islam but fundamentalism and it's claim on exclusive authority.

No, this is not a matter of opinion. He would have to do it to be factually correct.

That is the very point why Wilders harangues are defamatory. He puts all Muslims in one bag with the asinine label 'Islamofascist threat'.

 

Coin, it's good to get the perspective of someone who actually lives in the country. I'm curious about one thing, though:

Studied what? Do you mean law? Islam? Please elaborate.

Does most of the Dutch population believe as you do? I mean that Wilder is a loony tune. Do you think that his video (which I have yet to see but want to) constitutes hate speech under Dutch law?

You see, if under the democratically created laws of the Netherlands he is guilty of hate speech, then I believe he should be punished (though I might opine that I think the law is worth changing). But that should be determined by an impartial legal system and it should be applied equally to all citizens and residents of the nation. The idea that a person can be found guilty of something as open to interpretation as hate speech merely because a vocal minority makes enough kerfuffle about the issue, and that same vocal minority engages in worse transgressions of the law with impunity, that scares me

 

I can almost certainly say that he was. If he thinks he was not tried lawfully he is free to appeal all the way to the European court of human rights if he wishes.

 

Well, I hate to be a nit picker, but he hasn't been tried yet unless I really, really missed something. The article says that he was ordered to be tried, and goes on to insinuate that the reason the order was given was that OIC pushed for it, not because he actually broke a law -- I mean, look here:

Looks to me like the about face has everything to do with appeasing a noisy and violent minority (the murder of van Gough by these thugs was more than enough to make me give them the violent tag) and little to do with the rule of law. In any event, if he goes to trial, I wanna see the results.

 

o.0 I watched the video (available here (WARNING: EXTREMELY DISTURBING CONTENT*) http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2949546475561399959&hl=en ). Had he removed the last 3 minutes, it would have been nothing more than real pictures of murders, executions, and violence perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists, overlaid by quotes from real people. There were also verses from the Koran suggesting violence against non-Islamics.

I can understand how people can be upset that he showed that, but there is no way on earth that that is not legal. All of the pictures and videos and stuff are real (as much as I know... I mean, he could have edited the photos, so take it for what you will), how is that inciting hatred against Islam?

Of course, then he screws the whole thing up by telling people of the Netherlands to rise up against the Muslims and such, which I can see being inflammatory. However, I do not understand why people want to kill him over it... it is a freaking video! If anything, the only thing he (extremist) is doing is telling the Dutch to do what Islamic extremists tell their own people to do. Talk about being hypocritical!

That being said, telling the Netherlands to defeat the Muslims is pretty much the closest thing to hate speech (in the sense that it is urging people to act against them) that you can get, so jail him, for PR problems, if nothing else.

The first article posted.


* Basically, it is an R-rated movie, but real, so... more disturbing. We'll put it this way... I've never seen a real decapitation before.

 

The one problem I see with inciting Religious fanatics is that there is no prediction of who gets hurt. How many of the dead from 9/11 were the ones that actually pissed off Al Queda? If it was just Mr. Wilder who was at risk, it's his movie, and his consequences. But if this poses a risk to innocent civilians, the government needs to look more closely at what is going on...

 

http://www.radionetherlands.nl/currentaffairs/region/netherlands/080701-wilders-jordan-fitna

Here is an article from radio netherlands

 

I disagree. These people who take very extreme viewpoints, which very few people would ever even want to express, are only giving poignant examples of the negative side of free speech. This will eventually lead to laws being passed which impare free speech, and once that precedent has been taken, we (the dutch) can kiss our freedom of expression goodbye. And say hello to american lawyer-culture. What practical purpose do his rantings serve, besides gratifying some grumpy geriatrics, and dutch hillbillys? He is damaging society, stability, and the legal system.

He didn't study anything. He was a below average performer in middle school, and shows very little signs of any mental development, or depth of character. He is merely a simpleminded figurehead representing the hatred and disgruntlement of some people who are out of touch with society. He makes shocking and audacious claims/proposals, which the media is happy to make a big issue out of. I inform myself via internet nowadays, mainly to escape the media's hatemongering in Holland. Everywhere I zap or read, it's muslims did this, imam expresses insult that, Wilders said more rubbish, some muslim somewehere actually responded, bla bla bla bla. I'm not happy to encounter this thread actually, and have no desire to keep discussing it.

As for what most dutch think: Well, most dutch I know don't have much problems with local muslims. But many have inevitably been influenced by the media, and if they had little contact with muslims at first, then they will now actively avoid muslims. There are gangs of antisocial muslim youths in certain parts of the city (as there are negroid gangs, and caucasian gangs, all nothing new), and the media is blowing their mischief way out of proportion. These youths must be responding to an increasingly hostile atmosphere, since we never read much about it before 9/11. It's either that, or the media suddenly finds things that were already happening newsworthy. Social isolation of muslims is something we are trying our best to remedy, and every idiot expressing insults towards muslims is just worsening the situation. Imagine if you are singled out or bullied, and one person insults you, then you think that the whole class has that same opinion. To make matters worse, the dutch all have a similar appearance and skincolor, different from muslims, which appears to confirm their suspicions. Can you tell me how Geert Wilders' hostility is not a form of terrorism?

The first time I saw one of those muslim decapitation videos, I was sick to my stomach. Those klutzes in orange suits were making a bloody mess with a blunt knife, and you could see the expression of agony as the victim's head was still hanging on by his spine. It made me sick to my stomach, and I really hated muslims for a while. But then my senses came back, and my reasoning kicked in: It makes no sense that muslims would do such a gruesome thing. Any idiot would know that it wouldn't scare people off, but rather cause a violent counterreaction. It validated Bush's war on terrorism more than anything Bush could do directly. Or could he? For me, it only stands to reason that the video was made by those who benefit from it. Bush, his Saudi connections, and perhaps the CIA were involved in it. The guy who actually performed the decapitation was later captured, and he declared that he was forced by the 4 others in the video. They were all carrying guns, except him, and he had to read koran texts for half an hour, then cut off the head. It's sick.

A friend of mine made a point out of it to watch Fitna, and he told me that it's a completely rubbish movie, with no discernable line of thought, just rubbish shocking images gathered from the internet. Wilders even took a googled photo of a local rapper, claiming that he was a convicted terrorist, Mohammed B. I believe. And as for Mohammed B., who shot a public figure and shoved a list of victims down his slit throat, he was apparently in the employ of the AIVD (dutch secret services). Naturally Mohammed B. was counterspying on the AIVD, just like Al Quaida went rogue on the CIA. Naturally. Waiter, more tripe to swallow please!

 

Minor point: Interesting enough, that one is from Middle East Forum headed by Daniel Pipes. Pipes also runs Campus Watch which concerns itself with fingering scholars at US universities who are insufficiently supportive or even critical of Israel, and calls on students to report such un-American activities by their professors.

According to its website, the MEF "seeks to define and promote American interests in the Middle East." It defines U.S. interests as including "fighting radical Islam, whether terroristic or lawful; working for Palestinian acceptance of Israel; improving the management of U.S. democracy efforts; reducing energy dependence on the Middle East; more robustly asserting U.S. interests vis-à-vis Saudi Arabia; and countering the Iranian threat."

MEF circle of supporters largely overlaps wit PNAC, AIPAC and JINSA and the AEI for instance. MEF is a source that is staunchly pro-Israel and which's view on Islam are nearly universally negative. It's articles on Islam are selective and are IMO aimed on supporting policy goals. In short, MEF is a politically activist group, a lobby. When reading them, one is well advised to keep that in mind.