printSo says Jihad Watch’s Robert Spencer:
“Free speech goes on trial in the Netherlands on January 20, when Dutch politician Geert Wilders appears before the Amsterdam District Court on charges of having ‘intentionally offended a group of people, i.e. Muslims, based on their religion,’ as well as having incited to hatred and discrimination.
What did Wilders do to warrant such charges? He told the truth about the global jihad and Islamic supremacism, and their roots in Islamic texts and teachings, in his film Fitna and elsewhere. But nowadays truth-telling is at such a premium that those who still dare to engage in it are threatened, harassed and prosecuted.
“But Wilders is defiant: ‘On the 20th of January 2010, a political trial will start. I am being prosecuted for my political convictions. The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing. If a politician is not allowed to criticise an ideology anymore, this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom. However I remain combative: I am convinced that I will be acquitted.’
The very idea of trying someone for offending someone else is absurd – especially when the offended group is known to traffic in the PC multiculturalist coin of wounded feelings, so as to gain the political power that comes from victim status. That the Amsterdam District Court would aid and abet this absurdity and obvious manipulation unmasks the Wilders trial – even before it starts – as what it really is: an attempt by the nation’s political elites to silence one of their most formidable critics.”
Reading the complete column, Free Speech on Trial by Robert Spencer, is compulsory. You need to know that “In October the Obama Administration actually co-sponsored an anti-free speech resolution at the United Nations. Approved by the U.N. Human Rights Council, the resolution, cosponsored by the U.S. and Egypt, calls on states to condemn and criminalize ‘any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.'”
I predict that it won’t be long before you write a column like this about someone in the USA. Free speech is no longer available in this country.
In America, it took some jury nullification (in the Zenger trial) to establish Freedom of the Press. Perhaps a jury will do what politicians refuse to do.
While I am completely libertarian on freedom of speech, it is interesting to note that the “stop defamation” crowd NEVER finds anything remotely “hate speech” if it deals with condemnation of a certain Zionistic entity and practicioners of a religion connect to that same entity. Indeed, those who are the most “sensitive” to slurs against Islam (real or imaginary) are the biggest practicioners of Jew-hatred ranging from subtle to overt.
Regarding the Obama sponsored UN anti-free speech resolution, would that mean that after the U.S. undertakes to make Indonesia/Papua New Guinea safe for democracy, and the Asmat refugees start pouring into this country we won’t be allowed to complain? I had better get my licks in now.
Asmat tribe:
http://www.papuatrekking.com/Asmat_cannibals.html