On June 23, 2011 a long-awaited verdict was reached in the case of populist Dutch politician, Geert Wilders, charged with inciting hatred against Muslims. Spiegel Online reports that Wilders has been cleared of all charges related to his anti-Islamic statements.This decision in Amsterdam by the Dutch court is being hailed by free-speech and human rights activists. But it is a decision that is sure to have future implications for Dutch immigration policy and relations between the growing Muslims population there and the native Dutch. It is also a decision that has strengthened Wilders’ political image.
Wilders, leader of the Freedom Party (PVV) which made great gains in the last Dutch election, hailed today’s decision as a great victory for freedom of speech.
Wilders Criticized Islam
The trial which began in October 2010 was to determine whether Wilders was guilty of “inciting hatred against Muslims.” The Netherlands has in the past two decades seen increased immigration, especially from Muslim-majority countries, such as Morocco and Turkey. Controversy has arisen there over the problems associated with immigrant assimilation into Dutch society, particularly in regard to crime, welfare costs, and the unequal status of Muslim women. Wilders focussed his criticism on Islam, the religion of many of these immigrants.
Previous prominent Dutch critics of Islam, Theo van Gogh and Pym Fortuyn, were both assassinated. Wilders himself also pays a heavy personal price for his criticism: he is under 24-hour state-provided protection.
Charged with Inciting Hatred and Discrimination
Charges against Wilders were that he incited hatred and discrimination against Muslims and non-Western immigrants because of their race and religion. In 2008 Wilders had produced a 17-minute film Fitna which used Islamic texts, Islamic videos, and news clips which portrayed Islam as a violent religion. His accusers charged that this film denigrated Muslims and made them subject to hatred.
He was also accused of stating on an Internet forum that the Qur’an and Hitler’s Mein Kampf had similarities. It was these instances of criticism of Islam, which he calls a political, totalitarian ideology, which led to charges against him.
Wilders' Comments Not Criminal
Judge Marcel van Oosten said that Wilders’ remarks had sometimes been shocking or offensive, but he did not say that they were untrue. He argued that they were made in the context of a public debate about Muslim immigration and constituted legitimate comment, not a criminal act. Contradicting the accusations that Wilders has increased anti-Muslim sentiment, the judge said that Wilders’ actions could not be directly blamed for any discrimination against Dutch Muslims.
Minority Group Plaintiffs Might Appeal
The alleged victims who brought the charges against Wilders (a grouping of Moroccan, Turkish, and mosque associations) have indicated that they will appeal this decision by taking it to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. In the Dutch judicial system, an appeal there must be initiated by the prosecutor, an outcome which is unlikely.
Lawyer Ties Prakken, who represented the group of plaintiffs, expressed her displeasure with the verdict and with Geert Wilders following the decision. In “Dutch Court Acquits Anti-Islam Politician” The New York Times, June 23, 2011, she states, “He’s poisoned the atmosphere ... It’s normal now to say in the Netherlands that the immigration experiment has failed. The climate has worsened, and he is both one of the instigators and one of the symptoms. It’s not like it was 20 years ago.”
Support for Wilders
American author and director of Jihad Watch, Robert Spencer, in “The West dodges a bullet: Geert Wilders acquitted of all ‘Hate ‘charges” June 23, 2011 calls the decision “a great victory for decency and sanity.” Yet, he warns that those forces which were responsible for the prosecution of Geert Wilders will not be easily dissuaded and will pursue similar charges against others.
Canadian writer and cultural critic, Mark Steyn, previously summarized the Wilders’ trial as an attempt by the Dutch state to criminalize the platform of an opposition party which was gaining in popularity. With this acquittal, Steyn concludes in National Review Online “Geert Wilders Acquitted”, June 23, 2011, “Nevertheless, as in all these cases, the process is the punishment. The intent is to make it more and more difficult for apostates of the multiculti state to broaden the terms of political discourse.”
Wilders, in his closing statement before the decision, defended his criticism of Islam, saying that he believes Islamization presents a threat to Europe, and that it is his right and duty to warn Europeans about it.
What Wilders sees as his right to speak out, his critics see as direct incitement to religious and racial hatred. Robert Spencer warns that further judicial action is needed to prevent the same type of trial from being repeated: “Nonetheless, we will not be completely clear of this kind of Stalinist show trial until ‘hate speech’ laws are definitively rejected as the tools of tyranny that they manifestly are.”
Jen L. Jones - Based in Canada, Jones writes on human rights, history,and the natural world. She focuses also on Turkish and Scottish travel and ...
Join the Conversation