Geert Wilders: I propose the withdrawal of all hate speech legislation in Europe. I propose a European First Amendment. Freedom of speech is the keystone of our Western civilization, it is the keystone of our democracies and the keystone of our freedom. That is why freedom of speech should be extended instead of restricted.
Orwell that end’s well? Let us pray! George Orwell: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.
Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders will be in the United States this week, arriving direct from Italy where he received the Oriana Fallaci Free Speech Award.
During his acceptance speech, Wilders implored the audience in Rome to protect our most fundamental Western freedom, freedom of speech. Wilders expressed this commitment—contra the willful media distortions of his views—in this pellucid formulation:
That is why I propose the withdrawal of all hate speech legislation in Europe. I propose a European First Amendment. Freedom of speech is the keystone of our Western civilization, it is the keystone of our democracies and the keystone of our freedom. That is why freedom of speech should be extended instead of restricted. Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses’, Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s and Theo van Gogh’s film ‘Submission’, Kurt Westergaard’s cartoons and my documentary ‘Fitna’ should never be banned, but should be protected. As George Orwell once said: “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear”.
Earlier, while calling the Koran hate speech with specific reference to the Dutch Penal Code, Wilders was simply asking for consistent application of the Dutch law. And, like Winston Churchill (who wrote that Mein Kampf was “…the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant with its message”), Wilders compared the Koran to Mein Kampf, and called it hate speech according to the Dutch Penal Code.
Wilders’ demand for consistency, recalls the Calcutta Quran Petition of the 1980s. Like his Hindu predecessors, Wilders was fed up with Muslim abuse of similar Indian laws, and simply saying if one bans hate speech, in accord with existing Dutch Law, then the Koran is hate speech. The Calcutta Quran Petition chronicled how it was the abuse of hate speech laws by Muslims seeking to impose Sharia mandates on non-Muslim majorities that was the source of the problem.
As described in the Calcutta Quran Petition, two Hindus were arrested—under Indian penal code sections exploited by Muslims to prevent public criticism of Muhammad or other aspects of their creed—for publishing a poster which simply cited 24 Koranic verses (see them below*), with a caption, “Why riots take place in this country.” In this landmark case, the Hindus were eventually acquitted by a sober magistrate who opined,
…a close perusal of the Ayats [verses] shows that that the same are harmful and teach hatred, and are likely to create differences between Mohammedans on one hand and the remaining communities on the other.
Geert Wilders is opposed to all hate speech laws, as he stated explicitly on February 19, 2009 in Rome, and previously, here: “Everything should be possible except to issue calls for violence.” It is well past time for the media—across the political spectrum—to stop their grotesque mischaracterization of Wilders’ unequivocal defense of free speech. But demonizing Wilders, and imposing de facto limitations on his free speech criticism of Islam—not matter how reasonable his concerns may be—is a task for which our craven, lemming-like media elites are far better suited.
* USC-Muslim Student Association Compendium of Muslim Texts, Pickthall Translation
(9:5) Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.;
(9:28) O ye who believe! The idolaters only are unclean. So let them not come near the Inviolable Place of Worship after this their year. If ye fear poverty (from the loss of their merchandise) Allah shall preserve you of His bounty if He will. Lo! Allah is Knower, Wise.;
(4:101) And when ye go forth in the land, it is no sin for you to curtail (your) worship if ye fear that those who disbelieve may attack you. In truth the disbelievers are an open enemy to you.;
(9:123) O ye who believe! Fight those of the disbelievers who are near to you, and let them find harshness in you, and know that Allah is with those who keep their duty (unto Him).;
(4:56) Lo! Those who disbelieve Our revelations, We shall expose them to the Fire. As often as their skins are consumed We shall exchange them for fresh skins that they may taste the torment. Lo! Allah is ever Mighty, Wise.;
(9:23) O ye who believe! Choose not your fathers nor your brethren for friends if they take pleasure in disbelief rather than faith. Whoso of you taketh them for friends, such are wrong-doers.;
(9:37) Postponement (of a sacred month) is only an excess of disbelief whereby those who disbelieve are misled; they allow it one year and forbid it (another) year, that they may make up the number of the months which Allah hath hallowed, so that they allow that which Allah hath forbidden. The evil of their deeds is made fairseeming unto them. Allah guideth not the disbelieving folk;
(5:57) O Ye who believe! Choose not for guardians such of those who received the Scripture before you, and of the disbelievers, as make a jest and sport of your religion. But keep your duty to Allah if ye are true believers.;
(33:61) Accursed, they will be seized wherever found and slain with a (fierce) slaughter.;
(21:98) Lo! ye (idolaters) and that which ye worship beside Allah are fuel of hell. Thereunto ye will come.;
(32:22) And who doth greater wrong than he who is reminded of the revelations of his Lord, then turneth from them. Lo! We shall requite the guilty.;
(48:20) Allah promiseth you much booty that ye will capture, and hath given you this in advance, and hath withheld men’s hands from you, that it may be a token for the believers, and that He may guide you on a right path.;
(8:69) Now enjoy what ye have won [in war], as lawful and good, and keep your duty to Allah. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful.;
(66:9) O Prophet! Strive against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be stern with them. Hell will be their home, a hapless journey’s end.;
(41:27) But verily We shall cause those who disbelieve to taste an awful doom, and verily We shall requite them the worst of what they used to do.;
(41:28) That is the reward of Allah’s enemies: the Fire. Therein is their immortal home, payment forasmuch as they denied Our revelations.;
(9:111) Lo! Allah hath bought from the believers their lives and their wealth because the Garden will be theirs: they shall fight in the way of Allah and shall slay and be slain. It is a promise which is binding on Him in the Torah and the Gospel and the Qur’an. Who fulfilleth His covenant better than Allah? Rejoice then in your bargain that ye have made, for that is the supreme triumph.;
(9:68) Allah promiseth the hypocrites, both men and women, and the disbelievers fire of hell for their abode. It will suffice them. Allah curseth them, and theirs is lasting torment.;
(8:65) O Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you twenty steadfast they shall overcome two hundred, and if there be of you a hundred (steadfast) they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve, because they (the disbelievers) are a folk without intelligence.;
(5:51) O ye who believe! Take not the Jews and the Christians for friends. They are friends one to another. He among you who taketh them for friends is (one) of them. Lo! Allah guideth not wrongdoing folk.;
(9:29) Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the Religion of Truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.;
(5:14) And with those who say: “Lo! we are Christians,” We made a covenant, but they forgot a part of that whereof they were admonished. Therefore We have stirred up enmity and hatred among them till the Day of Resurrection, when Allah will inform them of their handiwork.;
(4:89) They long that ye should disbelieve even as they disbelieve, that ye may be upon a level (with them). So choose not friends from them till they forsake their homes in the way of Allah; if they turn back (to enmity) then take them and kill them wherever ye find them, and choose no friend nor helper from among them;
(9:14) Fight them! Allah will chastise them at your hands, and He will lay them low and give you victory over them, and He will heal the breasts of folk who are believers.”
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10 responses so far ↓
1 Scott Grayban
// Feb 22, 2009 at 1:50 am
I can’t understand how anyone could not read the Koran and say it isn’t hate speech.
Not in one of there passages does it say to “Love thy enemies”. It’s just simply hate.
2 Jack Swann
// Feb 22, 2009 at 1:48 pm
This is the trouble with the leftwing liberals among us….I doubt if any of these so called elite of the western media, the PC brigade or western politicians have ever read any verses from the D.I.Y. book of death and destruction (Qu’ran). What did Winston Churchill say about appeasers?
“They feed the hungry crocodile hoping it will eat them last”. All this at the expense of our freedoms of speech and expression just to get the muslim block vote.
It’s strange how certain people in the west can feel so sorry for murderers who might be sent back to their home country for fear that these scum might be punished but have so little regard for our own freedoms and security.
3 Kyle
// Feb 22, 2009 at 3:03 pm
I think the European hate-crime laws usually have “religion” as an exception for hate-speech, and that’s why they don’t ban the Quran. And this is ridiculous, especially given that most European leftists are secularists/atheists, and think religion is silly and irrational. What the European (and American) leftist hate-crime supports are REALLY saying is “I fully support the reinstatement of medieval Blasphemy laws into our societies, because there are a lot of people who feel strongly about religion, and even though I don’t share their beliefs—-I’m terrified of them.”
4 arah
// Feb 22, 2009 at 7:04 pm
Fitna The Movie Geert Wilders Film English Islamic Video 1/3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DAerxKYipU
5 Don, Phoenix, AZ USA
// Feb 22, 2009 at 9:58 pm
The trial of Geert Wilderrs will expose Islam and the Koran for what it truley is. The Koran itself will be used as evidence, and how can it possibly be defended? Wilders has them exactly where he wants them.
And I want to add, God bless the Italians! Here is one – the ONLY ONE – Western European country with some b*lls! A couple months ago they laid the law down on Muslims using church lots to pray in mass as a form of intimidation against Catholics/Christians, and after the cowardly UK rejected Wilders, the Italians bring him in and give him awards. I am now a fan of Italy! Fianlly, some Euros with a backbone! Let´s hope the rest of Europe will follow their lead.
6 Gertz
// Feb 22, 2009 at 10:07 pm
HERE HERE!
7 Daralharb
// Feb 23, 2009 at 2:11 am
This is in response to “Don” of Phoenix.
I would like to agree with you in that Geert has Islam right where he wants them.One problem however exists.Geert may not live long enough for there to be a trial.
One fine day a “hero”,one of those “mighty lions” of islam…ya know one of those who walk the correct path,will take it upon himself,not at the urging of islamic leaders mind you (yea right) to deliever a little bit of islamic justice and remove Wilders’s head from his shoulders.
The saddest part aside from a man being killed for merely standing up for his rights and all other free peoples rights is that islam will not be looked at in any unforgiving light in doing such a disgusting deed.The “hero” will be called ….unislamic…,we will be fed the hooey that islam does not teach what has happened to him,ignorant and non caring people will believe it……
this is islams idea of a martyr,the trained lunatic carrying out islamic murder/terror,maybe even kill himself in the act to get top paradise a little bit quicker,because the spin here is that even if caught he won’t be spending any large amount of time in prison for his CRIME.
Geert is or will be our idea of a Martyr.he knows full well what can befall him.I believe he knows full well his own government will not aid in his protection to any meaningful degree.
I for one will not let what he has accomplished thus far and what happens to him in the future fall into ruin and he will forever from the day he stood up to hate…known as islam…be used as an example by me to further the truth about islam and the TRIAL i have islam on.
8 Martin
// Feb 23, 2009 at 9:24 am
If organizations spread hate and terror by means of their regulations and charters, such as is exposed in the Qoran, the Haddith and the Shariah, it is the responsibility of politicians to forbid and ban these sort of such institutions as illegal. But the individual man must have always the legal right to execute freedom of speech and to be protected by the authorities to do. Man has a conscience but an organization has not, so there is no need to protect organizational movements that way. This is what I like to see written in the
constitutions of the countries in the world. Anyway, I am glad that England does not rule the waves anymore.
9 The Infidel Alliance
// Feb 24, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Since the Koran is alledgedly so mystical and sublime that it is difficult to understand and so easy to misinterpret, let’s not focus on it.
Instead, we should focus on the “prophet” of Islam, Muhammed. When the light of truth shines upon this man, he is revealed as an absolute monster, and any ideology based on his life’s example will ultimately collapse when it is exposed.
Understanding Muhammed is the easiest way to understand Islam. Forget the ridiculous Koran!
In every way, Muhammed represents the absolute worst in mankind. A killer. A slaver. A rapist. A mutilator. A pedophile. A looter. A sexual deviant. A mysogynist. A genocidist. Muhammed was just another delusional sadistic sociopath like Charles Manson, only much more successful.
I would love to see a psychiatric or psychological evaluation of Muhammed and compare it to Charles Mansons. I bet they would read like xerox copies.
If you compare the impact Muhammed has had on humanity to any other infamous tyrants of history, he must go down as the most evil, bar none.
Hitler, Mao, Stalin, Pol Pot, Ghengis Khan all did horrible things, but none left a 1,400 year terror cult as his legacy.
How in the name of humanity can anyone respect this pig as some kind of revered holy man, knowing what he did and how he acted?!?! And how can the free-thinking west accept it? Why not deify Manson then, and his little death cult too? They did basically the same thing.
Fear, intimidation, intolerance, violence and denial are the real “Pillars of Islam”, because those are the only things that can support the grand lie of “Muhammed the holy man”, his unholy examples, and his “religion of peace”.
Muslims cannot challenge or refute this characterization of Muhammed because his repulsive life story is recorded in black & white in their “holy” books, and they know it.
We must know it too. We must read it, understand it, and we must get the word out, because this is Islam’s true Achille’s heel.
~ The Infidel Alliance
( Remember those beheaded in the name of Islam in the past few weeks: Khomphet Janyalert and his wife Yinjai (Thailand), Piotr Stanczak (Afghanistan), Sumaira and Muhammad Sajjad (Pakistan), Aasiya Hassan (United States)………and Daniel Pearl, Nicholas Berg, Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-Il, and on and on and on…..)
10 IslamicInfidel
// Mar 3, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Muslims will typically use “peaceful” verses that are in the Qu’ran to fool the “unbelievers” into thinking that Islam is a religion of peace when they KNOW that those verses are ABROGATED or “made null and void” by verses that came later and are contradictory to the peaceful verses that are also in the Qu’ran.
The doctrine of Abrogation is essential to understand what the Qu’ran really teaches. Statements from Islamic theologians profess that the Qur’an is the immutable and unalterable word of Allah, but such statements should not be taken literally, as what is really meant (and understood by Muslims) is; “passages that have not been abrogated in the Qur’an are the immutable and unalterable word of Allah”.
“Abrogation” means the canceling or replacement of one Qur’anic passage by another. It seems that as circumstances changed during the 23-year period that Muhammad dictated the Qur’an, the directions and precepts found therein sometimes changed to accommodate new and changing political and military realities, sometimes quite dramatically.
Thus, the Qur’an abrogates or cancels itself in various passages and presents seemingly conflicting statements. Muslims do not view this sort of abrogation as a contradiction, but rather, as improvements to better suit varying circumstances or needs, or to fit Muhammad’s religious concepts. For example, many Islamic scholars consider that the verse reference “there is no compulsion in religion”, found in 2:256, has been abrogated by the passage found in 9:5,. This is widely understood because the more tolerant verse in chapter 2 was spoken about 7 – 8 years earlier than the one spoken in Chapter 9. There are many muslims that have chosen not to adhere themselves to this logic, who have chosen to believe in peace, but in the end their position on these matters are firmly rejected when shown that the “peaceful verses” have been made null and void and replaced with the violent texts of the Qu’ran since they came after the peaceful verses. To many muslims, rejecting the violent verses is the equivilent of rejecting Islam itself which is punnishable by death and far too often carried out.
In “Islam: Muhammad and His Religion”, page 66,[2] the great Islamic scholar Arthur Jeffery wrote: “The Qur’an is unique among sacred scriptures in teaching a doctrine of abrogation according to which later pronouncements of the Prophet abrogate, i.e.: declare null and void, his earlier pronouncements. The importance of knowing which verses abrogate others has given rise to the Qur’anic science known as “Nasikh wa Mansukh”, i.e.: “the Abrogators and the Abrogated”.”
The revered work “al-Nasikh wal-Mansukh” (The Abrogator and the Abrogated) deals in great detail with many subject matters addressed in the Qur’an wherein there appears to be some conflict or contradiction. The book goes through every sura (chapter), pointing out in full detail every verse which has been canceled, and the verse(s) which replace it. The author notes that out of 114 suras, there are only 43 which were not affected by this concept. As an example of the scope of abrogation in the Qur’an: there are 125 versus that call for tolerance and patience which have been canceled and replaced by sura 9:5: “Fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war)…..” and sura 5:33: “For those who do not submit to Allah their punishment is . . . execution or crucifixion, or the cutting off of hands and feet, from the opposite sides, or exile from the land”.
These two verses as horrible as they are, represent TRUE ISLAM and its continuous struggle (Jihad which means struggle) to subdue the entire earth and fight until all the world declares in one voice, “there is no other god but Allah and Mohammed its messenger”. As muslims that are true to their faith, they believe that the whole world belongs to Allah and everything in the world is theirs only. To take things away from unbelievers in not stealing but reacquiring what belongs to them naturally. To kill an unbeliever is not murder but a religious duty that Allah approves of.
The moral spins within Islam represent the hideous face of absolute evil that cannot be tolerated by the free world. Islam is the enemy of freedom, liberty, democracy, religious tolerance and tolerance towards anything not Islam. Islam must not be continued to be seen as anything other than an enemy of the world. Islam is completely unreformable. This is the face of Evil in all its glory. Islamic believers are brought to a point of such hatred, fueled by their own religion that its practically usless to reason with them.
I do believe that not all muslims believe in this interpretation of the Qu’ran, but they have little or no justification to adhere to these beliefs as their position is in conflict with the Qu’ran itself. The Qu’ran does a splendid job condemning those who are “peacefull muslims” in sura 9. The other possibility is that many muslims don’t even know what the Qu’ran teaches on matters such as these. The problem lies within education from those who believe in the violent tennants of the Qu’ran and are teaching the truth about Islam and are motivated by the violent texts themselves. The fact is; no matter what level the muslims beliefs are; they will sooner or later be taught that these violent texts must be carried out or you get executed for not obeying the commands of Allah. The shocking reality is that no muslim can be trusted no matter how peacefull they may appear to be. We cannot tolerate intollerance of this magnitude. By accepting them without judging their beliefs we inherently commit self-genocide.
Islam and its adherents must be expelled from every country that is not Islamic. Mosques must be destroyed and its people gathered up and deported. If these measures are not taken we will be annihilated from civil war that will erupt world wide from Islamic believers. War is inevitable with Islam and the only strategy that muslims will understand is intimidation. Only with the threat of destroying their most religious site, Mecca, will Islam be forced to back down and submit to the order of leaving western societies in peace.
Western society is completely contradictiory towards the Islamic mindset, and its time to force Islam out of western societies. If this action is not done soon, we will be entering a new phase on the earth within the next few/couple years. World War 3, Armageddon. The end of the world as we know it. Unfortunately I believe that this is already too late and soon Iran will create its first nuclear bomb and use it the first chance they get. The escalation of violence worldwide and the ceasation of commerce from this action will open the flood gates of nuclear retaliation. Once this line has been crossed, it will be impossible to stop the escalation of world-wide violence that
is sure to follow.