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Peaceful protest against Geert Wilders, on release of Dutch government report

Written by Cole2 on

From: islamizationwatch.blogspot.com

Interesting - a Dutch government study finds Wliders' Freedom Party 'islamophobic' and that it 'is mobilising systematic hatred against the authorities'. 'The authorities' - the report's findings seems almost a direct challenge to Dutch democracy. Firstly I thought Wilders was being accused of being racist and hateful towards Muslims. Now that seems to have shifted to 'directing hatred towards the authorities' and this would be the Dutch 'elected' authorities.

Now that the Freedom Party has an ex-Muslim representative - the racist charge has to be torn away. As for 'islamophobia' - you have sections of the followers of Islam saying - very vocally - we are in Holland to take over - and bring it under Islamic law. And contrary to popular belief - it is not only the 'hate preachers' and crazies who believe this.

Where the Dutch authorities / leading political party is rightly being challenged is where people object to the Islamization of their country - of which prior to Wilders and others' outspokenness - the 'authorities' were happy to allow - preferring to duck out on issues of freedom of speech and expression - that might offend 'Islam' [even builders in shorts offended] - and siding with Muslims calling for Islamic restrictions to be imposed on the whole of Dutch society. So fearful of being called racist - they were reluctant to suggest sensible changes to immigration policy - though they know it was being widely abused.

It is easy to compile a report that that blames Wilders for objections to policies and to further label these as hatred. It is probably harder to accept that you are not hearing the people.

You do get the impression - that some believe that if you - wave words like 'islamophobic' and 'racist' around like a magic wand and you can scare people off from the debate - that is just not going to happen.

A protest demonstration against Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders passed without incident in the city of Arnhem on Monday evening. Some 200 protesters carrying torches marched through the city where Mr Wilders' Freedom Party was meeting behind closed doors.

Arnhem's mayor Pauline Krikke had given permission for the protest on condition that the march would not be held near the hotel where the Freedom Party meeting was taking place.

Racist
Earlier on Monday in The Hague, Housing Minister Eberhard van der Laan (Labour) described Mr Wilders as a danger to the rule of law, should he get the 1.5 million votes that polls are predicting. "A single man saying crazy things won't undermine the constitutional state, but if countless people agree with him, you can't ignore it." Opposition leftwing liberal leader Alexander Pechtold called Mr Wilders a racist, in response to government-sponsored research by three academics into radicalisation. The researchers said in their report that the Freedom Party is "islamophobic" and "is mobilising systematic hatred against the authorities".

Idiocy
Geert Wilders, an opposition MP, responded to the accusations by a text message to the Volkskrant daily. Borrowing words often used by assassinated politician Pim Fortuyn, he wrote "These researchers are barking mad. This is idiocy. It's the umpteenth pathetic attempt by the elite to demonise us and to try and silence the Freedom Party and all of our voters."

Indecent
Mr Wilders described his attackers, minister Van der Laan and liberal leader Pechtold, as "political associates of Mohammed B.", the radical Dutch Muslim who murdered filmmaker and Islam critic Theo van Gogh in November 2004. Mr Van der Laan, a former lawyer, told Dutch public broadcaster NOS that he had been a personal friend of Mr Van Gogh. "Mr Wilders' attempt to associate myself and Mr Pechtold with that terrible event, on the very day that it happened five years ago, is indecent. Mr Wilders is entitled to his views, but we are entitled to respond to them."

Radio Netherlands

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