Thanks to Small Dead Animals for posting this excellent clip
Category Archives: lawfare
Geert Wilders persona non grata in England?
This morning Lord Malcolm Pearson, a member of the British House of Lords, announced that he has invited Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch Parliament, to show the movie Fitna (see it here ) in a committee room of the House of Lords next Thursday (12 February). Mr. Wilders has been asked to address a private meeting with members of the British Parliament, explaining to the Peers and MPs why he made Fitna and to engage in an open and frank discussion with them.
This afternoon Mr. Wilders received a letter from the British ambassador to the Netherlands saying that he is a “persona non grata“ in the United Kingdom. The ambassador told Mr. Wilders that he is a threat to public security and public harmony because of the controversy created by Fitna. Mr. Wilders intends to go to London anyway. “Let them arrest me in Heathrow,” he says.
If Mr. Wilders is denied entry to the United Kingdom, it will be the first time that Britain refuses entry to an elected politician from another member state of the European Union. The Dutch government has lodged formal objections with the British government over the unprecedented barring of an EU parliamentarian by another EU country.
Take (it) off eh?
Ontario Court Justice Norris Weisman has ordered a Muslim woman to remove her niqab, full face veil, during the court proceedings in a sexual assault trial. After claiming her garment provided her comfort, when faced with it’s shedding she tried to convince the court that her garment was suddenly a religious requirement to which Justice Weisman rejected.
Editorials in Canadian newpapers have pointed to the collision of two basic rights: religious freedom versus the right of a defendant to face his (her) accusor. The burqa issue has once again resurfaced in the media with predictable arguments for and against and, rightfully so.
I on the other hand, am not going to be caught arguing the merits of the burqa trap as a feminista issue of freedom, as I believe any woman has the fundamental right to be as stupid or oppressed as she sees fit wearing as much or as little as she pleases. Instead, my concern with this case lies solely with the proper administration of justice in a Canadian court room. One fundamental principle at trial is the requirement that all participants be visible and to challenge this inherited, fine value is to mock it’s merit. This case has little do with the niqab and everything to do with sharia law vying for equal status within the Canadian judiciary system. As a means to this end, the niqab is effectivly worn by poster chicks living the Whabbist cause, a visible argument for Islamist priority. This woman herself chose religion as a fall back position, a cherry picking event popular by Islamists.
Predictably her lawyer, sharia advocates and leftists with little to do since Bush vacated the Oval Office, are seeking that Justice Weisman’s order be overturned. This is an important case for Canadians to pay attention to since it will set a precedent and has the potential to change the fundamentals to the proper administration of justice in the Canadian court room. Unlike the mockery of justice that dominates an Islamic courtroom, Canada’s inherited British system is a well functioning reflection of a long standing model that serves democracy and the accused with purpose, fairness and equality.
Sharia certainly has no place in Canada’s courtrooms and for that matter, in Canada at all.
Comment on article by Tarek Fatah from the National Post.
This is a comment signed by Jim Heller on Tarek Fatah’s article dealing with the issue of the veil and Ontario courts. Tarek writes a soothing but logically invalid piece on the matter and there are many truly excellent comments written below it. I have also commented as vladtepesblog.com there as well. This I thought was an especially good piece and Jim if you are out there and read this let me know if you object to its republishing here and I will remove it immediately. If you do not, please consider contacting me. Perhaps you would like to write some articles for us here at Vlad.
You may want to read the original article on the National Post’s website before reading this, but the comment is excellent as a stand alone piece.
Eeyore.
Tarek, here’s what Wafa Sultan, a REAL heroine, has to say about Islam and women. You know she’s right, too, don’t you?:
“Islam Has Distorted the Concept of Honor”
Wafa Sultan: “If Islam really treated women with honor, we would see the positive consequences of that honor over the course of the past 14 centuries. Islam did not treat women with honor. On the contrary, it has distorted the concept of honor.
“My brother Rashid, I can call this pen a knife for 14 centuries, but it will never become a knife. It will remain a pen. Islam has turned these concepts upside-down, and has forced its followers to see things as their opposites – to view killing and beheading as an act of tolerance, to view taking a woman captive as an act of compassion, to view the plundering of spoils of war as their right, and to view masturbation against a little girl’s thighs as marriage.
“Thus, it has destroyed the intellectual structure of the Arabic-speaking nation, and has produced people who cannot distinguish between things and their opposites – people with distorted thinking and warped mentality, as infertile as barren land, which cannot yield a thing.
“The best proof of this is the reality of Islam. When the Prophet Muhammad married the child ‘Aisha, this was not an act of honor toward her childhood. When Muhammad married Zaynab, the wife of his adopted son, after seeing her naked and desiring her, this was not an act of honor toward married women. When Muhammad married the Jewish woman Safiya, upon his return from a raid in which he killed her father, brother, and husband, this was not an act of honor toward her. The same goes for all his marriages.”
“The Subjugation of Women Reduces Them to a Level Lower Than Beasts – Not to Mention the Laws of Inheritance, Testimony in Court, The Beating Of A Wife Who Refuses to Go to Bed With Her Husband, And ‘Honor’ Crimes”
“Accusing women of being ‘lacking in brains’ is not an act of honor toward her. Human beings – whether male or female – are the property of their Creator. No human being has the right to own another. The subjugation of women reduces them to a level lower than beasts – not to mention the laws of inheritance, testimony in court, the beating of a wife who refuses to go to bed with her husband, and ‘honor’ crimes.
“Muhammad said in a hadith: ‘Three things spoil one’s prayer: a woman, a black dog, and a donkey.’ Do they ever give this any thought? Do they realize that Allah chose the female body for his greatest invention – creation itself? Wouldn’t it be moral to bestow upon the female body a certain holiness, instead of viewing it as impure?” […]
“In my opinion, in the Arab countries in particular, you cannot say that the status of women has nothing to do with Islam. You cannot deny that there is a connection between the two. Islam is an all-embracing faith, which intervenes in the smallest details of a person’s life – beginning with the way he should enter the toilet, and ending with – excuse my language – the way he should wipe his behind.
Interview with Gregorious Nekshot
For those of you who do not know, Gregorious (a nom de plume) was arrested by no less than 10 policemen in Holland where they ransacked his apartment and took him to jail for the heinous crime of drawing cartoons lampooning Islam in the Netherlands. A fairly classic case of, ‘you call us intolerant, and we will lay the hammer down on you’. The video of his speech is currently the top post at Gates of Vienna and a full transcript of the speech is available on a Danish blog where the speech was held. You have to scroll down a bit for the English transcript. Well worth seeing and for that matter, reading as well.
Remember, this speech and these events such as we see with Geert Wilders, are tomorrows newspaper for the USA as much as they are last years news for Canada. Do not blow this off. Watch this interview. Gregorious is someone who actually ‘gets it’.
A small sample below…
Ladies and Gentlemen
In the Netherlands, satire is an old tradition. This tradition began seven centuries ago, in the thirteenth century, with the epic poem Reynaerd ‘the Fox’. The poem Reynaerd ‘the Fox’ ridiculed nobility and clergy – the highest civil and religious authorities of that era. The author must have been a wise man, he managed to keep his identity a secret. Monty Python’s movie Life of Brian pokes fun at Christianity. The movie stirred up anger and controversy in 1979. Nevertheless, the movie could be watched almost everywhere. The makers, Terry Jones, Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle and Michael Palin received neither death sentences nor did the Public Prosecutor lift them from their beds and put them behind bars.
These two fairly random examples illustrate that in Western Europe, religion – in the cases mentioned Christianity – has been ridiculed for ages. First this was done anonymously or under pseudonym, later openly. In Western culture, rationalism, science, humanism and democracy, in a lengthy and painful process, created the separation between Church and State. Freedom of Speech became a constitutional right in many countries. Thus, ridiculing Christianity, without fear of losing one’s life, has been possible for quite some time.
When large numbers of migrants with a different cultural and religious background came to Western Europe, things fundamentally changed. Poorly educated – and without exception raised under dictatorial regimes – a lot of immigrants with an Islamic background cannot agree to our separation between religion and politics, no matter how self-evident this separation appears to us.
US government moves farther away from CAIR
Council on American Islamic Relations has now been indicted on some serious charges. Most readers of VTB probably already knew they where an ‘Al Taqyyia’ or ‘ lie to the infidel to advance johad’ organization but its awefuly nice to see that the feds know it now too.
Congress warned: ‘Beware of CAIR’
Takes cue after FBI cuts off Muslim group for terror ties
Posted: January 31, 2009
12:00 am Eastern
© 2009 WorldNetDaily
 Rep. Sue Myrick, R-N.C. |
Warning: Do not meet with representatives of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a “Dear Colleague” letter sent yesterday to every U.S. House member says.
The three-page letter, a copy of which was obtained by WND, warns legislators to “think twice” about meeting with CAIR officials due to mounting evidence the group is tied to terrorists.
FBI officials have been canceling planned outreach events with CAIR chapters across the country, following a recent directive by FBI headquarters to sever ties with the group.
“The FBI has cut ties with them,” the congressional letter says. “There are indications that this group has connections to Hamas,” the Palestinian terrorist group.
The letter, signed by five Republicans, including the head of the House Anti-Terrorism/Jihad Caucus, is attached to an article by IPT News, a counter-terrorism news service. It notes that FBI field offices have sent letters to CAIR chapters explaining they can no longer pursue an outreach relationship, because of concerns about the CAIR national office in Washington.
CBN video on Geert Wilders charges by the Dutch Court
Durban II. It’s back, and now its insane.
Friday, January 30th 2009, 4:00 AM
The United Nations “anti-racism” forum, known as Durban II, is becoming a more important test for President Obama‘s multilateralist ambitions with each passing day. Durban I was the anti-Semitic hatefest that ended three days before 9/11. Durban II – the UN equivalent of the Son of Sam – will take place in April in Geneva. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has called on Obama not to legitimize the meeting, or its message, and not to attend. Canada has decided to stay away. But Obama has still not decided whether the United States will go. This Wednesday, however, the stakes got a lot higher with the UN’s release of the latest negotiating text.
Negotiators have now put on the table claims that (1) a homeland for the Jewish people is racism – a “racially based law of return,” (2) Israel is guilty of “apartheid” and (3) the veracity of the murder of one-third of the Jewish people during the Holocaust is subject to question. A reference to Holocaust facts has now been “square-bracketed” because Iran and Syria have questioned the numbers of Jews that died and consensus is the only guiding principle governing the decision-making process.
In total, six provisions are dedicated to demonizing Israel as racist. Not one of the other 191 UN states is mentioned. The intention is clear: the political defeat of Israel in the same vein as apartheid South Africa, because repeated attempts at a military defeat of Israel have failed.
But Israel is not the only target of Islamic and Arab states and their developing world partners. The draft takes straight aim at freedom of expression and counterterrorism. Free speech should supposedly be curtailed by new laws against “projecting negative, insulting and derogatory images of religions and religious personalities” and the introduction of “a code of ethical conduct” for the media. Counterterrorism activities are “obstacles hampering progress in the collective struggle against racism.”
At the top of the agenda is the creation of a hierarchy of human rights victims with “Muslim minorities” topping matters of concern. “The intellectual and ideological validation of Islamophobia” is a “most disturbing phenomenon,” the agenda says. “Anti-Arabism” is introduced as intolerance of a religious minority. Religions, instead of individuals, can be defamed. Calls are made to preserve “religious and cultural identities” without reference to universal rights and freedoms. Broad condemnation of “any advocacy of racial or religious hatred which constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence” is coupled with a refusal to require any finding by a competent, independent and impartial tribunal and a fair and public hearing.
In other words, Durban II is a frontal assault on universal human rights and freedoms by religious fundamentalists.
A little fiction to help get some perspective on today’s reality.
There is a story this link leads to, which is a wonderful dialectic. One which reminds me of the wonderful writieng style of Scott Adam’s best known as the creator of Dilbert but less known perhaps for his most charming book, ‘god’s Debris‘, one of the most enjoyable reads I have ever had. This story I do not think was written by Adam’s and nor is it charming in other than style. But like brilliant fiction since the invention of the novel, is a good way of using literary devices to help us understand our own reality. This author uses a time traveler from the future to solidify our understanding of the present. Settle back with a drink perhaps and take 15 minutes and enjoy this 2 page short story. This writer, actually gets it. We all need to if we hope to survive the near future in any recognizable way.
Al Queda terrorist in UK jail demands female guards wear veils.
This is just one example of why terrorism cannot be treated as a crime.
AL QAEDA KILLER MAKES VEILS JIBE FROM PRISON CELL
Terrorist Kamel Bourgass, jailed for life
Wednesday January 28,2009
A MURDERING Al Qaeda terrorist has sparked outrage after threatening legal action under the Human Rights Act unless women prison wardens in his presence wear veils.
Kamel Bourgass, 33, was jailed for life in 2004 after stabbing brave Special Branch officer Stephen Oake to death in a police raid.
Now Bourgass is not only recruiting extremists to his twisted cause in Wakefield prison but is claiming that women wardens without veils infringe his human rights.
He has even cracked sick jokes about the bravery medal DC Oake received posthumously, sneering that it was made from the “metal of my knife”. The Algerian had been preparing a deadly ricin poison attack on Bri tain when father-of-three Detective Constable Oake, 40, arrested him.
Bourgass, the first Muslim fanatic to murder a British police officer, has been in Wakefield jail for just a few weeks. But insiders claim he has already begun preaching Islamist hate against the West to inmates. And wearing his long black cloak, he has infuriated wardens with the sick jibe about DC Oake.
A prison insider revealed: “He is very abusive and confrontational with staff and says female officers in prayer meetings are a breach of his human rights.
“If they are on duty, he demands they wear a veil.
“We’ve been told to closely monitor him because he preaches hatred at prayer meetings.”
Great essay about Geert Wilders from Anti Jihad.org
A great man once warned that we “cannot sit idly by” and “not be concerned about what happens” in other places as injustice happens, equality is crushed, and liberties are threatened. He told us that: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
That great man dared to defy an ideology of identity-based supremacism, an ideology based on denying equality to all men and women, an ideology based on the lie that some are inherently superior to others simply based on their race, religion, creed, or national origin. That great man challenged a supremacist ideology whose “ugly record of brutality is widely known,” and he did not fear to name it or protest against its oppression of others. As a result, he was threatened and charged by some with actions that would “incite to hatred and violence.” Those against him felt that a line had to be drawn to stop his protestations and stop his message of defiance against supremacism. That man was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a man in America, who is still celebrated today and honored today as a courageous leader in defending equality and liberty.
But just a few days after the United States’ annual honoring of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s life and courage in defying supremacism, another man in another part of the world in another era, was being charged once again with inciting hatred for defying another supremacist ideology. That man was Geert Wilders, a legislator in the Netherlands, who has dared to defy the ideology of Islamic supremacism. Mr. Wilders has challenged Islamic supremacism because of its leaders’ threats against humanity, because of Islamic supremacism’s goals to conquer the Earth, and because of Islamic supremacism’s refusal to acknowledge the inalienable human rights of equality and liberty.
Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. did not fear to recognize that this problem dealt with the identity-based supremacist ideology of “white supremacy,” so Geert Wilders has also not feared to address the identity of those who would promote an Islamic supremacy. Like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. challenged whites, so Geert Wilders has challenged Islam. Defying any supremacist ideology requires the honesty to name the problem, so that humanity can find a solution. Whispering among ourselves in the dark in the face of a brutal supremacist ideology will only ensure that no one can gather the courage to light the first candle of wisdom to help humanity find the answers we desperately need.
In the case of Geert Wilders, a court was repulsed by his comments comparing Islamic supremacism’s beliefs to those expressed in Hitler’s Mein Kampf. That court was not repulsed by the daily calls for killing Jews by Islamic supremacists. That court was not repulsed by the antisemitic hate that is regularly channeled in the Islamic supremacist media. That court was not repulsed by the regular calls for the destruction of Israel by Islamic supremacists. That court was not repulsed by the references to the antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion promoted in Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf within the very charter of the Islamic supremacist Hamas organization, a group defended by protestors in the Netherlands over the past few weeks. That court was not repulsed by other Netherlands politicians defending calls for an intifada against Israel, while Amsterdam crowds called for “Jews to the gas.”
For the rest of this excellent essay please visit this site where it originated. Thank you.
Pat Condell weighs in on Geert Wilders situation in Holland.
I know as soon as I heard about Geert’s new charge in the Netherlands, I was hoping Pat would come out with a new video. I’m delighted to see that he has. Here it is.
Another stellar article about Geert WIlders in the Netherlands from GOV
It’s time for a change!
by H. Numan
Last week Geert Wilders was indicted for highly questionable charges by a kangaroo court that already convicted him before his trial has yet begun. In fact, his case hasn’t even been placed on the agenda of the court as yet. Already convicted? Yes, because of a legal loophole (art. 12 wetboek van strafvordering) and biased judges. The court found that the public prosecutors hadn’t done their homework properly and decided that Wilders must sentenced after all, which means a trial is actually just for show. They already indicated clearly what their verdict will be.
The loophole? Well, any interested party, being a person or juristic body, can force the court to prosecute a case that was rejected by the public prosecutor. Our left wing friends and lots of Muslims jumped at it. (art. 12 wetboek van strafvordering)
The government, by means of (in)justice minister Hirsh Ballin, lied (as he usually does) that it will not be a political trial. This is the same minister who refuses to abolish the obsolete blasphemy law (art. 137 wetboek van strafrecht) against the wishes of the House, and actually wants to strengthen it by abolishing it, but placing it elsewhere as a discriminatory criminal offense. Where it can and will be used to muzzle anyone. Guess who first? And yes, this very same minister that sent the dogs of justice to devour Gregorius Nekschot. That minister.
Of course it is a political trial. What else can it be? If Wilders is prosecuted for inciting hatred, why aren’t all the imams that do so on a daily basis on trial, imam Fawaz leading the line? If one can compare the Bible with Mein Kampf, why not the Koran? If a book, religious or not, is above criticism, we are in effect setting up a totalitarian regime.
I will go even further: compared with a common telephone directory the Koran is worthless. A telephone directory doesn’t contain as many errors and is much better organized. Also, a telephone directory is based on verifiable facts. Not fairy tales and horror stories. Nor does it promote hatred.
But I think our multicultural friends have bitten off far more than they can chew. For, can we change? Yes, we can! And even better: we are already changing! There is a very good reason why the left can’t manage the Internet. Remember the times when a newspaper bluntly stated “this or that has a 95% approval rate”? You knew it was wrong. Everybody you talked with said so. But nothing was and could be done about it. Yes, you could write a letter to the editor. Usually it would not be printed. If it was, nine out of ten selected letters supported the approval rating. Yours was added for variety’s sake.
Enter the Internet. “Wilders will be indicted”. Headline in De Telegraaf. Within one hour (!) eight thousand comments adorned the article supporting Wilders. The blogging world, at least in Holland is currently almost overloaded. People investigate who are the judges, the accusers and the whole case. Facts that are normally hidden are suddenly published for everybody to see. The official plea (pdf) ‘magically’ dropped in somebody’s mailbox.
Suddenly the accusers as well as the judges are in the spotlight. And boy, how they hate it! Their agendas are open for everybody to peruse. The left hand touches another left hand. Dark liaisons between government subsidies, non-functional ‘art groups’ and judges who (surprise, surprise) are in their board of directors or trustees…
A pat Condell video I would like to dedicate to Geert Wilders
It’s worth thinking about the nature of the charges against Geert and the meaning of due process in this case. He was charged among other similar things with comparing the Koran with Hitlers Mein Kampf. Imagine if you would that the Dutch court after trying this charge on the basis not of whether or not one may say this thing, but whether or not it is a fair comparison which appears to be the direction of the proceeding. Even if it isn’t it will be percieved to be as such. Imagine if the courts found that it was (as it in fact is) a reasonable comparison to make. The Dutch courts may well see the start of even more profound open hostility to the indigenous Dutch than already exists in Holland. If I can see this the court of appeals can. In essence, this is not a charge against Geert Wilders but a conviction with a slight delay before sentencing.
On a quasi related matter, here is an article about how a British holocaust survivor begged his family to leave the UK for the same reasons his family left Germany right before the war. Just in case we thought England was still a liberal democracy.
Mark Steyn on Geert Wilders and the Dutch courts. As expected, Steyn nails it.
Each incident that Mr. Steyn mentions in this article has been clearly detailed and documented here on Vlad. You can dig around for the links if you want to verify any of it. Its worth mentioning that as usual, Mark understated his own case. The Dutch policy of ‘non escalation’ was the grounds to prevent Dutch news crews from filming the destruction of the mural mentioned here in this article. But ultimately its to one purpose. To create a false impression of Islamic tolerance of it’s host nation.
Dutch courage [Mark Steyn]
Last year, The New York Times ran a story (front page, above the fold, gosh) on my troubles with the Canadian “thought police”, at the end of which I’m quoted as follows:
“Western governments are becoming increasingly comfortable with the regulation of opinion. The First Amendment really does distinguish the U.S., not just from Canada but from the rest of the Western world.”
The latest jurisdiction to get way too “comfortable with the regulation of opinion” is the Netherlands. As Andrew noted below, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal has ordered prosecutors to put the politician and film-maker Geert Wilders on trial for “making anti-Islamic statements”.
The Dutch, like the Canadians, think they can maintain social peace by shriveling the bounds of public discourse and bringing what little remains under state regulation. But one notices that the coercive urge, which comes so naturally to Euro-progressives, only goes in one direction. The Swedish Chancellor of Justice shuts down the investigation into the Grand Mosque of Stockholm for selling tapes urging believers to kill “the brothers of pigs and apes” (ie, Jews) because that’s simply “the everyday climate in the rhetoric”. The masked men marching through the streets of London with placards threatening to rain down another 9/11 on the infidels are protected by a phalanx of Metropolitan Police officers. The PC nellies of the Canadian “Human Rights” Commission, happy to hound the last neo-Nazi in Saskatchewan posting to the Internet from his mum’s basement, won’t go anywhere near Abou Hammaad Sulaiman Dameus al-Hayitia, the big-time Montreal imam whose book says infidels are “evil people”, Jews “spread corruption and chaos”, and homosexuals should be “exterminated”.
Instead, the state’s response to explicit Islamic intimidation is to punish those foolish enough to point out that intimidation. You don’t have to be as intemperate as Minheer Wilders can sometimes be: In the Netherlands even the most innocuous statement can get you into trouble. To express his disgust at Theo van Gogh’s murder, the artist Chris Ripke put up a mural outside his studio showing an angel and the words “Thou shalt not kill”. But the cops thought this was somehow a dig at the local mosque and so came round, destroyed the mural, arrested the TV news crew filming it, and wiped their tape. The Dutch have determined to commit societal euthanasia, and dislike fellows pointing out it might not be as painless as they’ve assumed.