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Wilders not guilty on all counts – Update

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From DutchNews.nl

The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.

Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna.

They said comments about banning the Koran can be discriminatory, but because Wilders wants to pursue a ban on democratic lines, there is no question of incitement to discrimination ‘as laid down in law’.

On the comparison of the Koran with Mein Kampf, the prosecutors said the comparison was ‘crude but that did not make it punishable’.

Dealing earlier on Friday with incitement to hatred, Van Roessel and Velleman said some comments could incite hatred against Muslims if taken out of context, but if the complete text is considered, it can be seen that Wilders is against the growing influence of Islam and not against Muslims per sé.

On Tuesday, the prosecutors said the MP should not be found guilty of group insult.

The public prosecution department was forced to take the case by the high court after anti-racism campaigners protested at its refusal to prosecute Wilders.

Lawfare in Austria: Is Truth Illegal?

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From Hudson-NY.org

Although the trial of Dutch MP and critic of Islam, Geert Wilders, and its serious implications for free speech in Europe, is once again creating a furor in the press, another high-profile trial of a critic of Islam — Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, in Austria — is being overlooked.

Ms. Sabaditsch-Wolff now faces up to a three-year prison sentence if convicted of “inciting hatred against a religious group” and “defamation of religion” in a lecture in 2009 on the “Islamization of Europe.”

As allegedly criminal statements fill the indictments of “hate speech” prosecutions, as in the case with Mr. Wilders, the Dutch MP says that he spoken the truth, and the truth cannot be illegal.

If the authorities in the states of the EU have taken note of this axiom, the Viennese state attorney has not. He has taken an even more sinister approach to prosecuting Mrs. Sabaditsch-Wolff: No statements are listed in the indictment. Instead, her entire three-part seminar has been designated as incriminating.

I am “always careful to distinguish between Muslims and Islam,” Mrs. Sabaditsch-Wolff says. That, apparently, does not matter.

Having spent most of her life in Muslim-majority countries, she has had much time to get to know Muslims as individuals, and to experience contemporary Islamic culture. She has lived in Kuwait; in Iran, as a child, at the time of the Islamic revolution, and, during the 9/11 attacks, in Libya.

Her stories are undoubtedly disturbing: two of her non-Muslim friends were attacked for breaking the Ramadan fast – one, a Coptic Christian, was assaulted for licking stamps at a post office; the other, for chewing gum. On another occasion, apparently, when Mrs. Sabaditsch-Wolff sat in her apartment watching the 9/11 unfold on television, and her landlord burst in exclaiming that “the Jews did it,” she asked him to leave. Continue Reading →

On Trial, Geert Wilders Opposes Judges

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By Jurjen van de Pol (Updates with lawyer comment in second paragraph.)

Geert Wilders, a Dutch political party leader who has agreed to support the first minority government in the country since World War II, challenged the judges at his trial today, saying they may be prejudiced.

Wilders’s lawyer Bram Moszkowicz criticized Jan Moors, who presides over the three-judge panel, for comments on his client’s decision to remain silent. Wilders, founder and head of the Freedom Party, went on trial today for inciting hatred and insulting Muslims.

“You’ve given the impression” that “we are no longer facing an unprejudiced judge, so I will challenge you,” Moszkowicz told the Amsterdam court. The trial was halted and other judges will now have to decide whether a new panel should be chosen.

Wilders, 47, is being prosecuted for calling the Koran “fascist” and comparing it to Adolf Hitler’s book Mein Kampf in a 2007 Dutch newspaper editorial, which led to complaints. A year later, he released his movie “Fitna,” in which he calls on Muslims to rip out “hate-preaching” verses from the book.

Moors said the court “reads newspapers and watches television nowadays” and that Wilders has been blamed by others for being “good in taking a stand and then avoiding a discussion.” By remaining silent “it seems you’re doing that today as well.”

Minority Government

The trial coincides with the formation of a new minority government led by the Liberal Party and Christian Democratic Alliance, which relies on Wilder’s Freedom Party to pass legislation. The government plans to ban full-face Islamic veils, an issue for Wilders’ party, which more than doubled its representation in parliament in June elections.

“With me, the freedom of speech of many, many Dutchmen is on trial,” Wilders told the court. “I’ve said everything I have said and won’t take a word of that back.” Continue Reading →

Fla. minister cancels burning of Qurans on 9/11

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GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The leader of a tiny church on Thursday backed off his threat to burn the Quran, saying he gave up the plan in exchange for a deal to move a planned Islamic center and mosque away from New York’s ground zero. The imam planning the center, however, quickly denied any such deal.

The Rev. Terry Jones had been under intense pressure to back off, including a statement from President Barack Obama and a personal call from U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates. Jones made his announcement outside his church alongside Imam Muhammad Musri, the president of the Islamic Society of Central Florida.

After the news conference, Musri told The Associated Press there was an agreement for him and Jones to travel to New York and meet Saturday — on the actual anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — with the imam overseeing plans to build a mosque near ground zero.

“I told the pastor that I personally believe the mosque should not be there, and I will do everything in my power to make sure it is moved,” Musri said. “But there is not any offer from there (New York) that it will be moved. All we have agreed to is a meeting, and I think we would all like to see a peaceful resolution.”

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf said he was surprised by the announcement and that he would not barter.

Speaking to reporters later, Jones was adamant that he was promised that the Islamic center would be moved, and said he would be “very, very disappointed” if it were not.

Jones, the pastor of a Florida Pentecostal church of 50 members, has said that he believes the Quran is evil because it espouses something other than biblical truth and incites radical, violent behavior among Muslims.

Jones on Thursday said he prayed about the decision and that if the site of the mosque was moved, it would be a sign from God to call off the Quran burning. Continue Reading →

The Ground Zero Mosque Protest: What the MSM Chose to Ignore

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From the Hudson-NY.org

Approximately a thousand people turned up at Park Place on August 22, to demonstrate against the proposed construction of a 15-storey Islamic center to be located two blocks from Ground Zero. Packed tightly into little more than one street block, demonstrators waved American flags, held up pictures of loved-ones killed in the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11/2001, and placards saying “No” to the “Ground Zero mosque” and “No” to Sharia Law. Now and again, throughout the day, these were joined by umbrellas as the hot, humid day broke into showers.

Speakers at the demonstration emphasized that freedom of religion was not at issue. The point of the demonstration was to protest the location, and to ask for sensitivity for those still grieving.

Undoubtedly the speakers did not fit the narrative the mainstream media wanted, and have been pressing home for the last couple of weeks: “Islamophobia” is rampant and dangerous. Daisy Kahn, one of the organizers of the proposed Islamic center, told ABC News recently that the backlash “is like a metastasized anti-Semitism. It’s not even Islamophobia, it’s beyond Islamophobia – it’s hate of Muslims.”

If the media really were concerned about a wave of anti-Muslim feeling, why not show the speakers, the majority of whom emphasized their solidarity with Muslims who love America, democracy, and liberty? Surely their voices, and their references to democracy-loving Muslims, would help to quash any “hate”. Continue Reading →

The Ground Zero Mosque: Which Muslims Is the US Supporting?

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From Hudson-NY.org

A civil war is raging in Islam; if the US is to be spared the social problems already shaking much of Europe, its politicians and media must take the more difficult course of engaging those Muslims who want to support democracy and liberty, while sidelining those who do not – or who want democracy so long it allows them to agitate for just a little more sharia, and a few more accommodations to hard-line views.

These thoughts, current after 9/11, seem to have quietly slipped from the debate over Islam and democracy, perhaps because the West’s self-appointed opinion-makers prefer to avoid unpleasant issues and hard truths concerning anything non-Western, and perhaps because this “civil war” is also being waged among those who claim to speak for Western civilization.

Increasingly since 9/11, many have seized on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq to portray the US as the main obstacle to “peace” (meaning surrender). Nevertheless, if much of the European press, and the left-wing press in the US, repeatedly attempted to portray President George W. Bush as a man lacking subtlety of mind, and the “war on terror” as a war against Muslims or Islam, the president himself was always careful to stress that the enemy were those who rejected democracy in favor of a medieval legal system that regarded women as second class citizens, and included such barbaric practices as stoning. “Islamo-fascism” was articulated as a radical strain of Islam, rejected by “moderates,” who were, and are, regarded as apostates by the Islamo-fascists, and, as such, sentenced to death in absentia. Continue Reading →

Fidel Castro Fascinated By Book On Bilderberg Club

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From CBS News

(AP) HAVANA (AP) – Fidel Castro is showcasing a theory long popular both among the far left and far right: that the shadowy Bilderberg Group has become a kind of global government, controlling not only international politics and economics, but even culture.

The 84-year-old former Cuban president published an article Wednesday that used three of the only eight pages in the Communist Party newspaper Granma to quote – largely verbatim – from a 2006 book by Lithuanian-born writer Daniel Estulin.

Estulin’s work, “The Secrets of the Bilderberg Club,” argues that the international group largely runs the world. It has held a secretive annual forum of prominent politicians, thinkers and businessmen since it was founded in 1954 at the Bilderberg Hotel in Holland.

Castro offered no comment on the excerpts other than to describe Estulin as honest and well-informed and to call his book a “fantastic story.”

Estulin’s book, as quoted by Castro, described “sinister cliques and the Bilderberg lobbyists” manipulating the public “to install a world government that knows no borders and is not accountable to anyone but its own self.” Continue Reading →

Did Austrian far-right leader receive hidden £40m fortune thanks to funding from Saddam and Gaddafi?

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From the Daily Mail

Austrian authorities are investigating the validity of a diary that is thought to contain details on alleged money flows between the country’s late far-right politician Joerg Haider and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, as well as with Saddam Hussein and his sons.

Haider – who died in a car crash in 2008 – was the head of the far-right Freedom Party before breaking away to form the less successful Alliance for the Future of Austria five years ago.
During his political career, he achieved notoriety for, among other things, a visit with Saddam Hussein on the eve of the Iraq war and a friendship with Gadhafi when Libya was still an international pariah.

Extracts from the confiscated black booklet – handwritten by former Freedom Party politician Walter Meischberger – are to be published in Wednesday’s issue of Falter, a respected Vienna weekly.

A weekend report in the magazine Profil said Haider had secretly stashed up to 45 million euro in a complex network of trust accounts in Liechtenstein. Continue Reading →

ADL: Community Center Near Ground Zero “Not Right”

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New York, NY, July 28, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today issued the following statement regarding the proposed Islamic Center near Ground Zero in Manhattan:

We regard freedom of religion as a cornerstone of the American democracy, and that freedom must include the right of all Americans – Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other faiths – to build community centers and houses of worship.

We categorically reject appeals to bigotry on the basis of religion, and condemn those whose opposition to this proposed Islamic Center is a manifestation of such bigotry.

However, there are understandably strong passions and keen sensitivities surrounding the World Trade Center site. We are ever mindful of the tragedy which befell our nation there, the pain we all still feel – and especially the anguish of the families and friends of those who were killed on September 11, 2001.

The controversy which has emerged regarding the building of an Islamic Center at this location is counterproductive to the healing process.  Therefore, under these unique circumstances, we believe the City of New York would be better served if an alternative location could be found.

In recommending that a different location be found for the Islamic Center, we are mindful that some legitimate questions have been raised about who is providing the funding to build it, and what connections, if any, its leaders might have with groups whose ideologies stand in contradiction to our shared values.  These questions deserve a response, and we hope those backing the project will be transparent and forthcoming.  But regardless of how they respond, the issue at stake is a broader one.

Proponents of the Islamic Center may have every right to build at this site, and may even have chosen the site to send a positive message about Islam.  The bigotry some have expressed in attacking them is unfair, and wrong.  But ultimately this is not a question of rights, but a question of what is right.  In our judgment, building an Islamic Center in the shadow of the World Trade Center will cause some victims more pain – unnecessarily – and that is not right.

(The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world’s leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.)

French MPs to vote on burkha ban that could imprison men who force wives to wear them

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From The Daily Mail

France could ban burkhas by the end of September after a series of parliamentary votes was scheduled to begin.

Deputies, or members of the lower house, are tomorrow likely to approve the measure outlawing face-covering veils despite outrage among the country’s 5million Muslims.

And the could be ratified in September when Senators are almost certain to approve the ban which has received overwhelming support from voters.

There was little resistance among lawmakers today as they debated bill that proposes to fine wearers £140 and imprison men who force their wives to put on the outfit.

But the ban could be shot down by France’s constitutional watchdog or the European Court of Human Rights.

That could dampen efforts under way in other European countries toward banning the veils. Continue Reading →

Iran Guards profiting from sanctions: Karroubi |

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From Street Journalist

“I believe that part of the Iranian rule as well as the Revolutionary Guards are in favour of sanctions as they make gigantic and astronomical profits from them,” Karroubi was quoted as saying on opposition website Rahesabz.net.

The Guards regularly shrug off international sanctions imposed on Iran for its defiant nuclear programme, with some top commanders expressing willingness to take on projects abandoned by Western companies, including in the energy sector.

Karroubi, who steadfastly opposes the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, again blamed the hardliner for the latest sets of sanctions imposed by the UN Security Council, the European Union and the United States. Continue Reading →

Jews reluctantly abandon Swedish city amid growing anti-Semitism

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The Muslim population in Malmo lives in segregated conditions that seem to breed alienation and anger directed at Israeli policies.

By Donald Snyder, The Forward, Haaretz

MALMO, SWEDEN — At some point, the shouts of “Heil Hitler” that often greeted Marcus Eilenberg as he walked to the 107-year-old Moorish-style synagogue in this port city forced the 32-year-old attorney to make a difficult, life-changing decision: Fearing for his family’s safety after repeated anti-Semitic incidents, Eilenberg reluctantly uprooted himself and his wife and two children, and moved to Israel in May.

Sweden, a country long regarded as a model of tolerance, has, ironically, been a refuge for Eilenberg’s family. His paternal grandparents found a home in Malmo in 1945 after surviving the Holocaust. His wife’s parents came to Malmo from Poland in 1968 after the communist government there launched an anti-Semitic purge.

But as in many other cities across Europe, a rapidly growing Muslim population living in segregated conditions that seem to breed alienation has mixed toxically with the anger directed at Israeli policies and actions by those Muslims — and by many non-Muslims — to all but transform the lives of local Jews. Like many of their counterparts in other European cities, the Jews of Malmo report being subjected increasingly to threats, intimidation and actual violence as stand-ins for Israel. Continue Reading →

German top intelligence official says right-wingers, Muslim extremists share anti-Semitism

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By The Associated Press, Google News

BERLIN — A top security official says he sees anti-Semitism in both right-wing and Muslim extremists in Germany.

Heinz Fromm, president of the domestic intelligence agency, is quoted in Der Spiegel Sunday as saying both have “a similar picture of the enemy: Israel and the Jews overall.”

Fromm said that while neo-Nazis adhere to a racist anti-Semitism, Muslim extremists “are oriented toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

He said both groups have the idea “that Israel and the Jews have undue power that needs to be fought.”

Last month a group of Arab youths attacked and shouted anti-Semitic slogans at a Jewish dance group during a street festival in Hannover.

Dutch Establishment Rejects Election Results

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Thomas Landen, Hudson-NY.org

Dutch Queen Beatrix does not like Member of Parliament Geert Wilders, the winner of the recent elections in the Netherlands; she is attempting to prevent the formation of a right-wing coalition that includes him.

The maneuvers to exclude Mr. Wilders have angered ordinary Dutchmen. Asked to comment on television, many voters could be heard complaining, “What is the use of going to vote when we are not listened to anyway?”

June’s general elections in the Netherlands resulted in a clear victory for the right. The Dutch Constitution, however, grants the Queen the power to appoint a person (or persons) of her choice to initiate and direct negotiations for the formation of a government coalition. By appointing the Labor politician Herman Tjeenk Willink to the position of formation facilitator, the Queen has made it clear that she wants a coalition that includes the Labor Party and excludes the Freedom Party of Geert Wilders.

An opinion poll taken last week shows that the Christian-Democrats would fall to the historic low level of 17 seats, while Mr. Wilders’ PVV would become the largest party in the country with 30 seats, ahead of the Liberals (28 seats) and Labor (27 seats).

Following the elections, Mr. Wilders said: “We want to be part of the new government. More security, less crime, less immigration, less Islam – that is what the Netherlands has chosen … I don’t think other parties can ignore us.” He seems, however, to have overlooked the power of the monarch. Continue Reading →