Dutch politician Geert Wilders has spent years speaking out against the threat Islam poses to his country, and now he finds himself in legal trouble for it.
The controversial lawmaker went on trial this week on charges of “inciting discrimination and hatred of Moroccans,” according to the Guardian.
The charges stem from a March 2014 rally in which Wilders asked a room full of supporters if they wanted “more or fewer Moroccans” in the country. When the audience chanted, “Fewer, fewer!” Wilders responded, “Well, we’ll arrange that, then.”
This led the Dutch government to prosecute Wilders for “offending members of a group based on their race, and hate speech and discrimination,” according to the New York Times.
The paper added Wilders could face up to two years in prison if convicted, although other offenders in similar cases are usually fined or slapped with community service.
Don’t think for a moment something like this couldn’t happen to an American politician, says American Freedom Defense Initiative president Pamela Geller – especially if Hillary Clinton becomes our next president.
“While she was secretary of State, the U.S. voted for U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18, which calls for criminalization of ‘incitement to religious hatred,’ a subjective category that allows for the criminalization of any dissenting voice,” Geller told WND.
Philip Haney, a retired Customs and Border Protection officer and author of “See Something, Say Nothing: A Homeland Security Officer Exposes the Government’s Submission to Jihad,” agreed an American politician could be prosecuted for “hate speech” if UN HRC Resolution 16/18 and the related “Istanbul Process” are more fully enforced in the U.S. He said there will inevitably come a point when Americans have to decide whether they will honor their Constitution or international laws against criticizing Muslims.
“Is the First Amendment going to stay inviolable, or are we going to submit to the authority of a macro global-level organization like the U.N., and submit our freedom of speech to the resolutions like U.N. 16/18?” Haney asked.
However, it is not just international law that is forming a protective bubble around Muslims. In 2013, Judicial Watch reported on a meeting in Tennessee in which Bill Killian, the region’s top federal prosecutor, was scheduled to tell the community that people who post inflammatory documents aimed at Muslims on social media are guilty of violating federal civil rights laws.
In December 2015, the day after two radical Muslims went on a killing spree in San Bernardino, Attorney General Loretta Lynch promised a Muslim advocacy and lobbying group she would take aggressive action against anyone who used “anti-Muslim rhetoric” that “edges toward violence.”
During a time of increased Islamic terror attacks in America and around the world, Lynch said her biggest concern was the “incredibly disturbing rise of anti-Muslim rhetoric” in America.
Adina Kutnicki, an Israel-based intelligence analyst and author of “Banned: How Facebook Enables Militant Islamic Jihad,” noted that particular Lynch speech was given at a conference sponsored by the Muslim Advocates, a Muslim Brotherhood front group.
Kutnicki told WND Dave Gaubatz, a premier counterterror investigator, infiltrated a May 2014 conference of the Islamic Society of North America and overheard a Muslim Advocates representative assure the audience that Facebook is essentially in their pockets. In other words, Muslim Advocates and other front groups are working closely with social media sites to shut down accounts of users critical of Islam.
All of this leads Kutnicki to conclude things are taking a turn for the worse in America.
“Conclusively, free speech is no longer a constitutionally protected right,” she told WND. “Concomitantly, it is only a matter of (a short) time before trials begin, and not only against politicians. The above is manifestly clear: all Americans are in the crosshairs of the nation’s totalitarian speech-minders.”
And like Geller, Kutnicki believes the situation could get worse if Hillary Clinton assumes the presidency.
“No doubt, if Hillary Clinton is elected, or if Democrats retake control of the Senate, Americans will no longer be able to utter public criticism against Islam, migrants or related protected groups,” Kutnicki said. “In actuality, Clinton’s reputation precedes her, relative to her absolute nexus to Islamic dictates. Her closer than close relationship to Huma Abedin – a bona fide member of WAMY (World Association of Muslim Youth) and related Islamic terror groups – is a de facto warning sign that Islam will be protected at all costs.
“Not only that, reportedly, a British Party called her ‘Islam’s whore.’ Ipso facto, since any criticism of Islam is one of the harshest offenses under the sharia laws of blasphemy, well, anything remotely construed as ‘hate speech’ will be deemed punishable by law.”
The New York Times reported the Wilders case is about “a conflict between freedom of speech and the freedom from discrimination.” Freedom from discrimination may be a principle in the Netherlands, but Haney hopes it will never become entrenched in America.
“Freedom from discrimination,” Haney pondered. “Who defines that? How do you define ‘freedom from discrimination?’ Who is the victim and who is the guilty one? Who defines that? Is speaking the truth discrimination? Is it going to become a crime for simply pointing out that the country’s experiencing a lot of internal turmoil because of the influx of immigrants?”
Kutnicki, for her part, said freedom of speech must always trump the “freedom from discrimination” in a free society.
“Firstly, without freedom of speech, the cornerstone of a free society, ‘freedom from discrimination’ ceases to exist,” she reasoned. “Intrinsically, what is considered verbally ‘discriminatory’ is wildly subjective and the quintessential slippery slope. So aside from actual exhortations inciting to murder, which is against the law in any free and civilized society, the rest of this should be deemed steps toward totalitarian silencing.”
Geller, author of “Stop the Islamization of America,” said she believes freedom from discrimination is already morphing into a fundamental American right, but is actually a euphemism for “freedom from opposing voices.”
She commended Wilders for boycotting his own trial out of a conviction that it violated the principle of freedom of expression. Geller said Wilders’ attendance would lend the trial legitimacy it doesn’t deserve.
Geller agreed with Wilders’ comment that “the Netherlands is no longer a free country but a dictatorship.”
“In a free country, dissenting opinions are not subject to prosecution,” Geller said.
Kutnicki agreed Wilders should not attend his trial.
“Since it is akin to a ‘witch hunt,’ as opposed to a [judicial] trial, it would lend legitimate legal cover,” she said. “Effectively, this ‘show trial’ is showcasing what will happen if one dares to criticize Islam, even if one is a powerful politician. A chilling effect, in all its manifestations. Resultant, the Netherlands, (like other western nations) is a teetering fraction away from being a dictatorship.”
