Death to Free Speech in the Netherlands

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Ragusa, i posted a link to a story from radio netherlands with information about the jordan issue 2 posts above yours(figured maybe you didn't see it).

 

Yes, you did that. So what?

The MEF article reads like this:

That said, distinguish carefully between the charges made in Jordan against him, and the completely separate charges made against him in the Netherlands. Then there is the Dutch 'taking the Jordan extradition request very seriously', implying that they are considering extradition. Nonsense. The Netherlands won't extradite him because what the Jordanians accuse him of is not a crime (or rather, a different one) in the Netherlands, and because he iirc might face the death penalty in Jordan. That means that the Jordanian extradition request is a political stunt that will lead nowhere, and the Dutch and Jordanians know it.

As for Radio Netherlands, why don't you take an article that's up to date? Geert Wilders to be prosecuted - Court rules anti-Islamic remarks went too far.

You notice the differences in tone between the two articles?

 

This is idiocy. So now whenever and wherever you say something that doesn't please the imams, this or that Islamic state can request your extradition?

The light in which something is present is always relevant, but ekhm... quoting someone, how can that be defamation?

Where do we live?

 

Chev,
of course a state can claim jurisdiction and demand extradition, when according to its criminal code a crime was committed. If the criminal code is the Sharia the criminal offences will nearly always be religiously coloured. But doing that, and having a chance for success, are two separate issues. In that sense, I don't quite get what you're upset about.

And I don't think that Wilders needs to quote anybody to meet the criteria of defamation. From the more recent Radio Netherlands article:

 

Of your three quotes the 2nd one may be inflammatory, but I don't see it as a hate crime. As to the other two, is he correct?

 

From my own experience he is correct concerning a special group of muslims.
There are areas in my town where it might happen that a Turk might call you
"[insert bad insult here] German".Quite ironic.
There are groups who don't want to deal with Christian society and separate themselves and even dream of a Muslim lead nation of Europe (yes , that's true).
And there are others who just live their lives as other Germans.

In my opinion one shouldn't appease the radical groups of muslims.
This makes the minority of extremists in Europe only stronger.

The problem is, the extreme groups rise in acceptance by a growing number of muslims.
That is the point that worries me.
There are a lot of people who ignore this problem, or live in a happy safe place, but I can assure you from my own experience, there ARE problems here in Germany, and I guess in other parts of Europe as well.

 

This is very similar to what many say about people from Mexico coming over our borders, espeically here in Texas. I hear a lot of comments like this from some people. I don't agree with it, but really it's no big deal.

We also let the KKK speak out in public, about how they want to overthrow the US government, and that they support a fascist, racist regime. That would be treason. But we still let the would-be traitors do it. It's in our Consitution that citizens can speak their minds.

 

I hope this is the last time I feel tempted to comment in this thread, because 3 posts spent on Mr. Wilders is really 3 too many.
People, please try to see hypocrisy in your opinions here. Geert Wilders, unfortunately a dutch government figure, has been actively opposing muslims in Holland for years. He goes to great lengths to make it impossible for them to come to Holland, live here, and practice their religion here. He has crossed many moral, ethical, legal and religious lines to step on toes. In defense of his misbehaviour, you come with rationalizations how he should be defended in the interest of free speech, as has been done in Holland many times. However, when the government in Jordan stirs things up a little by also making a controversial claim, you rise up in opposition. Since many of you are biased against muslims, you fail to see the equal misbehaviour in this two-sided argument. Wilders' video, his accusations, and many of his past actions, are punishable by Jordanian law. Since he has victimized Jordanian nationals too, the country is within its rights to request an extradition.
The dutch government is not in the habit of extraditing to other countries if a death penalty is involved. On the contrary, the dutch gov't will even defend their nationals and push for a life imprisonment instead. An interesting anecdote is of a chinese-dutch national imprisoned in Thailand for drug smuggling, which is punishable by death. The dutch gov't managed to get his life saved, and even after it became clear that he had a false passport, they still maintained that he should not be put to death. Holland will go to these lengths (and dutch diplomats can be stronger than standing armies in this) even for a scum-sucking waste of space like Geert Wilders. The Jordanian request for extradition stood no chance of being agreed to, and is more of a political statement than anything else. Jordan knew this when they issued the request.
This whole affair reminds me of a 'scare' we had in Holland years back: When a dutch minister was asked about the legality of sharia law in Holland, he made the mistake of actually elaborating on the question. He pointed out that technically it was possible to make the transition to sharia law, giving an objective, illustrative view of his line of work. The papers were full of the stupidest headlines like: Sharia to come soon! He was publically condemned, and had to apologize for 'scaring people', which was entirely the fault of the media.
Another funny anecdote, is of a dutch national managing to hack the US defence mainframe (oh I would've loved to see what that turned out!). The USA requested extradition, but the dutch gov't refused as long as he could get the death penalty for it.

 

I did not realize that person we are speaking of was a Jordanian, since I thought he was Dutch. Well, that's a lttle different. If he is a national than a country of his origin can make a request. Personally, I would still turn them down if the person was seeking asylum in a country with greater freedom. Sorry, Coin. You can shout that we don't like Muslims, but nothing could be further from the truth. It's just that we value our Constitutions. It protects everyone, even idiots.

 

I don't believe he is Jordanian, I think that Jordan was just sticking their nose in to the situation.

However, you are 100% correct about the Constitution. I guess that is what is really bothering me about this situation. The U.S. Constitution appears to take "freedom of speech" to a different level then the Netherlands and Germany (according to Ragusa) We go out of our way to allow the nutjobs to say whatever they want because we don't want to get into deciding who is a nutjob and who isn't.

 

Well, if that's the case, I have to say that they are bigger idiots than he is. In fact, they appear to be trying to prove his point for him. Could you imagine if we decided to prosecute a bunch of Iranian Mullahs for discriminating against gays and women under US law?

 

That would then be an instance of where 'liberal' Europe is more conservative than the US.

I can easily see why. Germany for one is still haunted by what came out of letting free speech reign with a formally apathetic, neutral state standing by, watching it's constitution being denounced and attacked, and eventually sidelined. We have decided to never let that happen again - not by 'Islamofacists', nor by the traditional nazi-type rightists or militant leftists here, or anybody else. That's what our hate speech legislation and legislation that allows banning unconstitutional parties is all about.

Democracy is a precious thing. We don't take chances and let it's survival depend on the free play on the market of opinion. We had that instance when it went catastrophically wrong. Never again.

 

Fair enough, Rags. I can see why you'd want to err on the side of caution in Germany.

Have any Muslim clerics been tried under German hate speech laws?

 

I know of one case, namely Metin Kaplan, as Ragusa mentioned allready.
He called out officially for murder to a special person, which was indeed carried out by one of his followers.

 

Maybe some of our lawyers on site could comment, but I don't believe that very many countries will extradite their citizens to a foreign country if the crime committed was done on the home country's soil. For example:

If LKD, a Canadian citizen living in Canada, writes a pamphlet that criticizes Mohammed, can he be extradited to Jordan because his pamphlet violates Jordanian law? I think not. God, I HOPE not. Even if it were a country that doesn't have the death penalty, any actions LKD takes on Canadian soil should not fall under the legal jurisdiction of any other political entity.

The worst Jordan could do would be to try the person stupid enough to try to distribute said pamphlet in Jordan, in which case the distributer would have committed an offense on Jordanian soil and would therefore be subject to their laws. But as long as I have not set foot outside of Canadian soil, I don't think my government would extradite me. I don't know of any country that would, but I could be wrong.

 

Metin Kaplan went to jail not for hate speech, but more specifically for solicitation of murder of a rival Islamist, for which he was sentenced to 4 years in jail, which he served. He was then released from jail, and due to his crime, he lost his refugee status and was returned to Turkey. There he was immediately arrested, tried and received a sentence of life imprisonment.

In this case Kaplan said that he wanted his rival dead, without explicitly ordering the murder. It is an interesting question legally, whether a fatwa, declaring someone worthy of death under Islamic law, that is then being followed on also constitutes solicitation of murder, and allows to try the cleric who spells it out.

 

Religion as keyword is a no-brainer, since the topic here is about Wilders being accused of hate-speech against Islam.

Also, the disticintion between riot and protest is definatly not "floating". It is a very distinct one. A riot involves violence. Protests do not.

What does that prove? There are nutjobs and fundamentalists among the protesters. Big surprise there.

Very poor. But that's not the point. The only connection between the riots and religion is that the riots took place during Ramadan.

 

Ragusa, my next question is, do you think that was a just result? I do, but I do not have all the facts or the context of being a German citizen to work from.

And a more open question -- where should a good Western Democracy draw the line? At what point does "Free speech" become "hate speech"?

Obviously this line is not one that "any fool can see" because there seems to be a lot of vastly different opinions on where to draw the line.

 

Well, Fabius if you don't accept the given evidence, it is OK for me.
But then don't blame others for their opinions.

And one last try to explain my posted links concerning the religious motivated protests in Europe:
What is NOT clear about the message presented there?
You say they are only some nutjobs?
Well they seem pretty much accepted by their surrounding fellows containing the majority.
If you see only a handful of signs saying I want more money on a strike, does it mean, they are only from a handful of greedy workers and the majority of other striker think more moderate or different?
I don't get you. I find the videos pretty obvious, but well, our opinions seem to differ here.

And given the word protest.
It can mean a calm protest, or a protest where the opinions are called out violently but without physical force or it could mean that it is a more or less peaceful protest with some minor violent acurrances.
It really depends on the context.
For me riot involves clearly physical violence by a majority of the protesters against objects as well as livings.And for me, the line is floating.As can, e.g., a peaceful protest turn out into a violent riot.
But I accept your opinion here.