Sunday 8 May 2011

Meanwhile in Amsterdam ......


Written by Diana West

... Geert Wilders made his final statement in court yesterday where he is still on trial for telling the truth about Islam. This, as often noted, is a judicial outrage, a public nightmare, and an existential threat to liberty as we have known it which doesn't end because bin Laden is dead. There is a raw, ugly fear of Islam in the non-Islamic world, and the grotesque reflex of the frightened power classes is to side with the raw, ugly power of Islam, which, never let it be forgotten, is derived solely from their own fear. The results are to be seen in the travesties around us from the Netherlands' campaign to silence, penalize and make an example of the courageous Wilders, to the USA's grotesque staging of a dignified, Islamically correct "funeral at sea" for a mass murderer whose corpse should have been disposed of as the human trash that it was.

Reading Geert's words is a sobering experience, spoken as they are in the face of a thoroughly craven but still powerful establishment-machine. In this desperate hour for free speech, they sound an SOS we seem powerless to answer. But they are inspiring, too, for the example they set. Here in the 21st century is a man whose allegiance to liberty is paramount.

Geert Wilders:
Mister President, members of the Court. I recently tried to have Your Honors removed from the case for your refusal to register a statement of perjury against Mr. Hendriks. My challenge of the court did not succeed. I must accept that. I do wish to say, however, that I was more annoyed by another declaration of the President of the Court on the day of the official hearing of Mr. Jansen. He said that I was a free man, that I could not be compared to Mr. Nekschot because I was a free man.

Mister President, you could not be more wrong. For almost seven years now, I have not been a free man. I lost my freedom in 2004. I live as a prisoner with guards without you having convicted me. Without protection I am even less certain of my life than I am now. Mister President, you would not use the words “free man” if you could change places with me for one week.

Mister President, members of the court, I am here as a suspect again today. I have said so before: This penal case is a political trial. An attempt is being made here to silence a politician who speaks on behalf of one and a half million people and who already pays a heavy price for that every single day. Formally, only I stand on trial here, but in practice the freedom of speech of millions of Dutchmen is on trial.

This trial is not merely a political trial. It is also an unjust trial. When you look at the order of the court (to prosecute me) it is clear that the verdict has already been passed. The court has issued an order to prosecute me in which it concludes that I am guilty of incitement to hatred. The court has concluded that my statements as such are of an insulting nature. The court has concluded that I am guilty of the most serious charge: the incitement to hatred and discrimination. The court has concluded that it expects that the criminal prosecution will indeed lead to a conviction. Mister President, members of the court, the court has already done your job. Long before I was brought to trial before you, I was found guilty and was condemned. Hence my right to a just trial has been violated.

Alas, this is but the tip of the iceberg. Without any doubt, the judges who presided this case have conveyed a semblance of partiality. I have been denied 15 of the 18 witnesses whom I wanted to call. Every high representative of the judicial power has given his view on this case, and often to my disadvantage. But Counselor Schalken was the worst.

Counselor Schalken, who co-authored the decision to prosecute me, makes a habit of discussing my trial and arguing his case at elegant dinner parties for intellectuals. Counselor Schalken dined with my witness, Mr Jansen – note that he was one of the only three witnesses whom I was allowed to call – three days before Mr. Jansen was to be interrogated by the court. During this dinner Mr. Schalken TRIED to influence Mr Jansen. The fact that he did not succeed is irrelevant.

Mr. President, members of the court, stop this unfair, political trial. Respect our Dutch freedoms. If this trial continues, despite the fact that the principle of the presumption of innocence has been violated, and if I am convicted, not only my freedom will be infringed, but also the right of all Dutch people to hear the truth. The 19th century black American politician Frederick Douglass, the son of a slave, put it as follows: “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer as well as those of the speaker.”

Mr. President, members of the court, I end with a quote of George Washington, who said: “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” Mr. President, members of the court, do not let this warning become reality. Stop this charade, this political trial where I have already been convicted by the court even before I was a suspect. Stop it now. If you do so, and I passionately hope you will, this will benefit freedom of speech as well as the respectability of the judicial power and the rule of law.

Source
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Note: Here is a further example of the Dutch approach to free speech, an article on Dutch News.nl regarding the judge's refusal to investigate one of the prosecution witnesses for perjury, has the following footnote: 
"Comments have been disallowed for this article. We know from experience that some subjects generate a massive stream of comments which conflict with our guidelines for submissions and this is one of them. 
Translation:  "We don't like what you might say, so we won't let you say it!!"
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 Dutch judges discuss the Wilders trial

9 comments:

Macaw said...

Fantastic article Sarah. In your opinion (as well as others on this blog), what do youthink the result will be (and if found guilty), what would the sentence be?

Sarah Maid of Albion said...

I do not know what will happen Macaw. The judges would love to convict him, it is a total kangaroo court, and they have done everything they can to undermine his defence.

However, he has not broken the law.

They may come up with something equivalent to the Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff verdict ("Mohammed was not a paedophile because he raped grown up women too") but it will be less easy for the media to cover up this time

Anonymous said...

Even the poll is rigged at almost 50% in favour of dual nationality ON THEIR PAPER. CHECK IT OUT. Scum Marxist dopeheads

Rusty Mason said...

Clever pic, good article, thanks.

alanorei said...

Somewhat OT but this is where Islamisation ends.

The Barnabus Fund site shows that the Egyptian situation is replicated elsewhere in the world.

Concerted efforts are being made to impose it in the West, as the article shows.

I suggest watch for the pope to emerge in Europe as the pastoral protector of anyone fearful of jihadists. It's the old carrot-and-stick approach.

Franz said...

Sending him to prison would be the greatest political gift to Mr. Wilders.

Almost all revolutionaries have a spell of jail in their biographies. Makes them all the more credible in the eyes of their followers. Next best thing to a martyr.

If they send him to spend two or three years behind bars, the very astute Mr. Wilders will utilize it as an opportunity to write a bestselling book and emerge to freedom (and the next election) endowed with the myth of being the "white Mandela".

I certainly don't hope the Dutch authorities will be as draconian as locking this courageous man up for exercising his freedom of speech.

If they do however, they shoot themselves in the foot with both barrels of a 12 gauge shotgun.

alanorei said...

Simon Darby has a good comment, I think, about the overall picture related to the concerns that Mr Wilders is being pilloried for in true inquisitorial* fashion.

*As Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 1:9 "there is no new thing under the sun."

MICHAEL DEAN MILLER said...

Makes me proud to be American when a man like Mr. Wilders quotes General George Washington.

Anonymous said...

I'm afraid I am no longer going to be able to maintain my silence and inactivity on this issue if he is convicted.
It really is the case that our freedom of speech is being sytematically attacked in a selective way.
I agree, there is no such thing as POSITIVE discrimination. ALL discrimination is negative from someone's or some group's perspective. These courts are therefore as guilty as hell themselves as the law itself is descriminatory.