IHR Director Mark Weber Banned From Britain

IHR Director Mark Weber Banned From Britain

Theresa May’s 2015 Order Cites Alleged Quotes That a Major Newspaper Now Acknowledges Were Inaccurate or DistortedNews from Institute for Historical Review
January 2018 (Updated)


Weber speaking at the April 2015
‘London Forum’ Meeting

Mark Weber, an American historian and director of the Institute for Historical Review, was banned from Britain in April 2015 by order of Theresa May, who is now the country’s Prime Minister. The decision to ban him was “taken personally” by May while she was serving as Home Secretary, Britain’s Home Office has acknowledged.

As justification for the ban, her order cites three statements allegedly made by Weber, as reported in a sensational article in Britain’s Mail on Sundaynewspaper. After the exclusion order was issued, the paper publicly acknowledged that the first of the three statements attributed to Weber was never made by him, and that a portion of the second statement was likewise not by him.

Moreover, the second and third statements cited in the order are distortions of remarks Weber had made at a “London Forum” meeting on April 11, 2015 – as he explained in a letter to the Home Office of Jan. 9, 2018. (Full text below). That letter is a response to a Home Office letter to Weber of Dec. 22, 2017, and a Home Office file letter of April 29, 2015. (Facsimiles below.)


Theresa May
Home Secretary in 2015, and now Prime Minister

The text of Weber’s address, titled “The Danger and Challenge of Jewish-Zionist Power,” is posted on the IHR website, along with an audio recording. A video of the talk is posted on YouTube.

The “London Forum” gathering, which drew an audience of more than a hundred, received extensive but hostile coverage in major British newspapers, as well as by Jewish news services. Although media reports called the event a gathering of “Holocaust deniers,” in fact not a single one of the speakers at the meeting spoke about the Holocaust, or said anything that could be considered “Holocaust denial.”

London’s Metropolitan Police Force looked into the talks by Weber and the other speakers, and decided that what they said “does not reach the threshold for a criminal investigation,” the London Daily Express reported. The news that Weber and the other speakers “would go unpunished provoked outrage in the Jewish community,” the Express also noted. A spokesman for the “Campaign Against Anti-Semitism” organization, the paper reported, said that the “speakers should have been barred from the UK.”

“The decision to ban me from the UK,” says Weber, “was based on inaccurate, untrue or distorted claims from a sensational and hostile second-hand report. British authorities made no effort to check the accuracy of the statements cited to justify this ‘McCarthyite’ ban.”

“If authorities in, say, Russia or Poland or China, were to ban peaceful UK citizens from entering those countries on the basis of similarly sensational and inaccurate reports,” Weber adds, “British politicians and media commentators would understandably protest and voice their outrage.”

The current government of Prime Minister Theresa May is one of the most ardently pro-Zionist in British history. In a speech on Nov. 4, 2017, for example, she praised and defended the notorious Balfour Declaration of 1917, by which Britain pledged to support the Zionist campaign to establish a “Jewish homeland” in Palestine. That Declaration is widely regarded as a blatant betrayal by Britain of its often-proclaimed devotion to the principles of democracy and self-determination.

In April and May 2015 Weber persistently urged the Mail on Sunday to correct at least the most egregious errors about him in its report on the “London Forum” meeting. After exchanges of e-mail messages by Weber with the paper’s managing editor, John Wellington, and a face-to-face talk with Peter Sheridan, the paper’s correspondent in California, the Mail on Sunday in late May or early June 2015 added a “correction” footnote to its posted report that acknowledged that it had inaccurately attributed at least two quotations to Weber — quotations that were cited in the UK ban against him.

Mark Weber is director of the Institute for Historical Review (IHR), an independent educational and publishing center that works to promote peace, understanding and justice through greater public awareness of the past, and especially socially-politically relevant aspects of modern history. It is recognized by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service as a 501(c)(3) public interest, educational, not-for-profit enterprise. Founded in 1978, the IHR is non-partisan, non-ideological, and non-sectarian. Its offices are in Orange County, southern California.

Mark Weber holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in history. In 1988 he testified for five days in Toronto District Court as a recognized expert on Germany’s World War II Jewish policy.

Weber first learned that he was banned from the UK on Sept. 23, 2017, at the international airport of Madrid, Spain, as he was about to board a flight to London’s Heathrow airport for a lay-over of a few hours before getting a connecting flight to return home to California. He was obliged to pay hundreds of dollars to arrange belated alternative flights back to the US.

After his return home, Weber wrote letters to relevant British agencies, including the Home Office, to learn more about the ban. It was not until January 4, 2018, that he received letters from the Home Office explaining just how and on what basis he had been barred from entering the UK.

The UK government routinely bans visitors “if their presence would not be conducive to the public good.” Although British authorities will not say just who is on its list of “excluded” persons, it is known that Edward Snowden, Martha Stewart, Louis Farrakhan, Pamela Geller, Michael Savage and Geert Wilders are among those who have been banned.


Mark Weber

P.O. Box 2739, Newport Beach, CA 92659 Tel. 714 -593 9725 E-mail: weber@ihr.org(link sends e-mail)January 9, 2018

Ref.: W1993505

Home Office
P. O. Box 1922
Croydon, Surrey CR90 9DD
England – UK

Dear Sir or Madam,

Thank you for your recently-received letter of Dec. 22, 2017 (copy enclosed) in response to my letters to the Home Office of October 5 and November 6, 2017. I also appreciate that you enclosed a copy of your letter or notice of April 29, 2015 (copy enclosed), which explains how and on what basis the decision was made to exclude me from the UK.

In your April 2015 letter, three statements attributed to me are cited as reason or grounds for the decision. You then write: “The Home Secretary considers that should you be allowed to enter the UK you would continue to espouse such views. In doing so, you would be committing listed behaviours and would therefore be behaving in a way that is not conducive to the public good.”

My main purpose in writing today is to explain that the decision to exclude me from the UK was based on second-hand information that is, at least in part, inaccurate, untrue or distorted.

The first of the three statements attributed to me in your April 2015 letter is this: “The Holocaust is a religion. Its underpinnings in the realm of historical fact are non-existent – no Hitler order, no plan, no budget, no gas chambers, no autopsies of gassed victims, no bones, no ashes, no skulls, no nothing.”

In fact, I never wrote or uttered those words, and I do not agree with them.

No source, or even a date, is given for this statement. To the best of my knowledge, it was first (inaccurately) attributed to me some years ago by the “Anti-Defamation League,” an influential US-based Jewish-Zionist organization.

The second of the three statements attributed to me in your April 2015 letter is this: “The Jewish connection covers all areas and reaches every level. Most Americans may not even sense this gigantic effort, but there is scarcely a Jew who is not touched by its tentacles. In reality, the Jewish hold on American life is far more dangerous. Why? Jews in America have a strong loyalty to a foreign country – Israel. Secondly, because of the distrustful and sometimes adversarial way in which Jews view the rest of us. This ‘chosen people’ mindset, this ‘Us vs Them’ attitude, is anchored in centuries of Jewish history and heritage.”

As your April 2015 letter makes clear, this statement, as well as the third one you cite, were attributed to me in an item, headlined “Nazi Invasion of London Exposed,” that appeared in the Mail on Sunday of April 18, 2015, which sensationally reported on a talk I gave at a meeting in London one week earlier. As your April 2015 letter notes, this item is posted online athttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3045115/Nazi-invasion-London-EXPOSED-World-s-Holocaust-deniers-filmed-secret-race-hate-Jews-referred-enemy.html

The first two sentences of the second statement are actually not by me. As I made clear in my London talk, those two sentences were quotations from The Zionist Connection, a detailed study by Jewish-American scholar Alfred M. Lilienthal, issued by Dodd, Mead, a respected New York publisher.

The remainder of that second statement, as well as the third statement attributed to me in your April 2015 letter, are likewise distortions of remarks I made in my address at that London meeting.

The full text of my London talk is posted at: http://ihr.org/other/jewishzionistpower2015

A video of my April 2015 London address is posted online at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEJ0UUIaxF0

I was so concerned by the errors and distortions in that Mail on Sunday report, on which you have relied, that in April 2015 I sent an e-mail message to managing editor John Wellington to ask him to correct at least the most blatant errors. I also met in person with Peter Sheridan, the Mail on Sundaycorrespondent in California, to gain his help in correcting errors about me in his paper.

After several exchanges of e-mail communications with both Wellington and Sheridan, and some delay, the Mail on Sunday in late May or early June added a “correction” footnote to its posted report acknowledging that it had inaccurately attributed to me at least two quotations – quotations cited by the Home Office as grounds for its exclusion decision. Of course, that online Mail on Sunday correction was made after the decision had already been made to exclude me from the UK.

Although you mention that there is no “statutory right of appeal against the Home Secretary’s decision,” I urge you to inform the appropriate authorities that the April 2015 decision to exclude me from the UK is based on second-hand information that is, at least in part, inaccurate, untrue or distorted. I further respectfully ask the appropriate authorities to reconsider and rescind the decision to exclude me from the UK.

Sincerely,

Mark Weber

Geert Wilders’ Final Statement to the Court in The Netherlands

Geert Wilders’ Final Statement to the Court in The Netherlands
 
Geert Wilders, the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party in the Netherlands which is now number one in the polls, gives a courageous speech to Members of the Court in the Netherlands where he has been accused of discrimination and inciting racism for remarks in 2014, televised live, in which he led a roomful of followers in chanting that they wanted “fewer” Moroccans in the Netherlands. And he is absolutely correct that the Criminals Justice (sic) System is becoming a farce and will suffer a fate similar to the Lying Main Stream Media which is populated increasingly by journalistic whores. When true justice diverges from natural law, truth and morality, then the justice system has lost its legitimacy and we are on the road to tyranny.
 
The European Union’s White-hating elite,with Polish part Jewish Angela Merkel leading the pack, seeks to replace the indigenous people of Europe with a malleable Third World mish-mash. This was the evil goal of the EU’s mastermind Count Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, who dreamed of a Europe without nationalities, a new mixed-raced European man, part African, part Asian, with a new moral aristocracy of Jews. This nightmare blueprint for genocide has never been honestly presented to Europeans.
 
But brave Europeans are rebelling. That is why the present, discredited gray order of elite conspirators is frantic. That is why they are persecuting a brave Dutch nationalist, Geert Wilders,
 
 
Paul Fromm
Director
CANADA FIRST IMMIGRATION REFORM COMMITTEE
Mr. President, Members of the Court,
When I decided to address you here today, by making a final statement in this trial against freedom of speech, many people reacted by telling me it is useless. That you, the court, have already written the sentencing verdict a while ago. That everything indicates that you have already convicted me. And perhaps that is true. Nevertheless, here I am.
Because I never give up. And I have a message for you and The Netherlands.
 
Inline image 1
For centuries, the Netherlands are a symbol of freedom.
Who one says Netherlands , one says freedom. And that is also true, perhaps especially, for those who have a different opinion than the establishment, the opposition.
And our most important freedom is freedom of speech.
We, Dutch, say whatever is close to our hearts.
And that is precisely what makes our country great.
Freedom of speech is our pride.
And that, precisely that, is at stake here, today.
I refuse to believe that we are simply giving this freedom up.
Because we are Dutch. That is why we never mince our words.
And I, too, will never do that. And I am proud of that. No-one will be able to silence me.
 
 
Moreover, members of the court, for me personally, freedom of speech is the only freedom I still have. Every day, I am reminded of that. This morning, for example. I woke up in a safe house. I got into an armored car and was driven in a convoy to this high security courtroom at Schiphol. The bodyguards, the blue flashing lights, the sirens. Every day again. It is hell. But I am also intensely grateful for it.
Because they protect me, they literally keep me alive, they guarantee the last bit of freedom left to me: my freedom of speech. The freedom to go somewhere and speak about my ideals, my ideas to make The Netherlands – our country – stronger and safer. After twelve years without freedom, after having lived for safety reasons, together with my wife, in barracks, prisons and safe houses, I know what lack of freedom means.
I sincerely hope that this will never happen to you, members of the court.

That, unlike me, you will never have to be protected because Islamic terror organizations, such as Al-Qaeda, the Taliban and ISIS , and who knows how many individual Muslims want to murder you. That you will no longer be allowed to empty your own mailbox, need to carry a bulletproof vest at meetings, and that there are police officers guarding the door whenever you use the bathroom. I hope you will be spared this.
However, if you would have experienced it – no matter how much you disagree with my views – you might perhaps understand that I cannot remain silent. That I should not remain silent. That I must speak. Not just for myself, but for The Netherlands, our country. That I need to use the only freedom that I still have to protect our country. Against Islam and against terrorism. Against immigration from Islamic countries. Against the huge problem with Moroccans in The Netherlands . I cannot remain silent about it; I have to speak out. That is my duty, I have to address it, I must warn for it, I have to propose solutions for it.

I had to give up my freedom to do this and I will continue. Always. People who want to stop me will have to murder me first.
And so, I stand here before you. Alone. But I am not alone. My voice is the voice of many. In 2012, nearly 1 million Dutch have voted for me. And there will be many more on March 15th.
According to the latest poll, soon, we are going to have two million voters. Members of the court, you know these people. You meet them every day. As many as one in five Dutch citizens would vote Party for Freedom, today. Perhaps your own driver, your gardener, your doctor or your domestic aid, the girlfriend of a registrar, your physiotherapist, the nurse at the nursing home of your parents, or the baker in your neighborhood. They are ordinary people, ordinary Dutch. The people I am so proud of.
They have elected me to speak on their behalf. I am their spokesman. I am their representative. I say what they think. I speak on their behalf. And I do so determinedly and passionately. Every day again, including here, today.
So, do not forget that, when you judge me, you are not just passing judgment on a single man, but on millions of men and women in The Netherlands.
You are judging millions of people. People who agree with me. People who will not understand a conviction. People who want their country back, who are sick and tired of not being listened to, who cherish freedom of expression.
Members of the court, you are passing judgment on the future of The Netherlands . And I tell you: if you convict me, you will convict half of The Netherlands . And many Dutch will lose their last bit of trust in the rule of law.
Of course, I should not have been subjected to this absurd trial. Because this is a political trial. It is a political trial because political issues have to be debated in Parliament and not here. It is a political trial because other politicians from – mostly government parties – who spoke about Moroccans have not been prosecuted. It is a political trial because the court is being abused to settle a political score with an opposition leader whom one cannot defeat in Parliament.
This trial here, Mr. President, it stinks. It would be appropriate in Turkey or Iran , where they also drag the opposition to court. It is a charade, an embarrassment for The Netherlands, a mockery of our rule of law.
And it is also an unfair trial because, earlier, one of you – Mrs. van Rens – has commented negatively on the policy of my party and the successful challenge in the previous Wilders trial. Now, she is going to judge me.
What have I actually done to deserve this travesty? I have spoken about fewer Moroccans on a market and I have asked questions to PVV members during a campaign event. And I did so, members of the court, because we have a huge problem with Moroccans in this country. And almost no-one dares to speak about it or take tough measures. My party alone has been speaking about this problem for years.
Just look at these past weeks: Stealing and robbing Moroccan fortune seekers in Groningen , abusing our asylum system, and Moroccan youths terrorizing entire neighborhoods in Maassluis, Ede and Almere. I can give tens of thousands other examples, almost everyone in The Netherlands knows them or has personally experienced nuisance from criminal Moroccans. If you do not know them, you are living in an ivory tower.
I tell you: If we can no longer honestly address problems in The Netherlands, if we are no longer allowed to use the word alien, if we, Dutch, are suddenly racists because we want Black Pete to remain black, if we only go unpunished if we want more Moroccans or else are dragged before the penal court, if we sell out our hard-won freedom of expression, if we use the court to silence an opposition politician, who threatens to become Prime Minister, then this beautiful country will be doomed. That is unacceptable, because we are Dutch and this is our country.
And again, what on earth have I done wrong? How can the fact be justified that I have to stand here as a suspect, as if I robbed a bank or committed murder?
I only spoke about Moroccans on a market and asked a question on an election night meeting. And anyone, who has the slightest understanding of politics, knows that the election night meetings of every party consist of political speeches full of slogans, one-liners and making maximum use of the rules of rhetoric. That is our job. That is the way it works in politics.
Election nights are election nights with rhetoric and political speeches; not university lectures, in which every paragraph is scrutinized 15 minutes long from six points of view. It is simply crazy that the Public Prosecutor now uses this against me, as if one would blame a football player for scoring a hattrick.
Indeed, I have said on the market in the beautiful Hague district of Loosduinen “if possible fewer Moroccans.” Mark that I did so a few minutes after a Moroccan lady came to me and told me she was going to vote PVV because she was sick and tired of the nuisance caused by Moroccan youths.
And on election night, I began by asking the PVV audience “Do you want more or fewer EU,” and I did also not explained in detail why the answer might be fewer. Namely, because we need to regain our sovereignty and reassert control over our own money, our own laws and our own borders. I did not do that.
Then, I asked the public “Do you want more or fewer Labour Party.” And, again, I did not explain in detail why the answer might be fewer. Namely, because they are the biggest cultural relativists, willfully blind and Islam hugging cowards in Parliament. I did not say that.
And, then, I asked “Do you want more or fewer Moroccans” and, again, I did not explain in detail why the answer might be fewer. Namely, because people with a Moroccan nationality are overrepresented in the Netherlands in crime, benefit dependency and terror. And that we want to achieve this by expelling criminals with also the Moroccan nationality after denaturalizing them of their Dutch nationality and by a stricter immigration policy and an active voluntary repatriation policy. Proposals which we have made in our election manifesto from the day I founded the Party for Liberty .
I explained this in several interviews on national television, both between the statement on the market and election night, as well as on election night a few moments after I had asked the said questions. It is extremely malicious and false of the Public Prosecutor to want to disregard that context.
Disgusting – I have no other words for it – are the actions of other politicians, including the man who for a few months may still call himself Prime Minister. Their, and especially his, actions after the said election night constituted a real persecution, a witch hunt. The government created an atmosphere in which it had to come to trial.

Prime Minister Rutte even told small children during the youth news that I wanted to expel them and then reassured them that this would not happen. As if I had said anything of that kind. It is almost impossible to behave viler and falser.
But, also, the then Minister of Security and Justice, who, it should be noted, is the political boss of the Public Prosecutor, called my words disgusting and even demanded, he demanded that I take them back. A demand of the Minister of Justice, you do not have to be called Einstein to predict what will happen next, what the Public Prosecutor will do, if you do not comply to the demand of the Minister of Justice.
The Interior Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister, too, both from the Labour Party, expressed themselves similarly. In short, the government left the Public Prosecutor no option than to prosecute me. Hence, in this trial, the Officers of Justice are not representatives of an independent Public Prosecutor, but accomplices of this government.
Mr. President, the elite also facilitated the complaints against me. With preprinted declaration forms. Which were brought to the mosque by the police. In which, it has to remarked, the police sometimes said that they, too, were of the opinion that my statements were inadmissible.
And a sample made by us showed that some complaints were the result of pure deception, intimidation and influence. People thought they were going to vote, they not even know my name, did not realize what they were signing or declared that they did not feel to be discriminated against by me at all.
Someone said that, at the As Soenah mosque after Friday prayers alone, 1,200 complaints had been lodged because it was thought to be an election. There were parades, led by mayors and aldermen, like in Nijmegen , where CDA mayor Bruls was finally able to show off his deep-seated hatred of the PVV. The police had extra opening hours, offered coffee and tea, there were dancing and singing Moroccans accompanied by a real oompah band in front of a police station, they turned it into a big party.
But meanwhile, two representative polls, one commissioned by the PVV, the other commissioned by De Volkskrant, showed that, apart from the government and media elite, 43% of the Dutch people, around 7 million people, agree with me. Want fewer Moroccans. You will be very busy if the Public Prosecutor is going to prosecute all these 7 million people.
People will never understand that other politicians – especially from government parties – and civil servants who have spoken about Moroccans, Turks and even PVV members, are being left alone and not prosecuted by the Public Prosecutor
Like Labour leader Samsom, who said that Moroccan youths have a monopoly on ethnic nuisance.
Or Labour chairman Spekman, who said Moroccans should be humiliated.
Or Labour alderman Oudkerk ,who spoke about f*cking Moroccans.
Or Prime Minister Rutte, who said that Turks should get lost.
And what about police chief Joop van Riessen, who said about me on television – I quote literally: “Basically one would feel inclined to say: let’s kill him, just get rid of him now and he will never surface again”?
And in reference to PVV voters, van Riessen declared: “Those people must be deported, they no longer belong here.” End of quote. The police chief said that killing Wilders was a normal reaction. That is hatred, Mr. President, pure hatred, and not by us but against us. And the Public Prosecutor did not prosecute Mr. Van Riessen.
But the Public Prosecutor does prosecute me. And demands a conviction based on nonsensical arguments about race and on concepts that are not even in the law. It accuses and suspects me of insulting a group and inciting hatred and discrimination on grounds of race. How much crazier can it become? Race. What race?
I spoke and asked a question about Moroccans. Moroccans are not a race. Who makes this up? No-one at home understands that Moroccans have suddenly become a race. This is utter nonsense. Not a single nationality is a race. Belgians are no race, Americans are no race. Stop this nonsense, I say to the Public Prosecutor. I am not a racist and my voters are neither. How do you dare suggest that? Wrongly slandering millions of people as racists.

43% of the Dutch want fewer Moroccans, as I already said. They are no racists. Stop insulting these people. Every day, they experience the huge problem with Moroccans in our country. They have a right to a politician who is not afraid to mention the problem with Moroccans. But neither they nor I care whether someone is black, yellow, red, green or violet.

I tell you: If you convict someone for racism while he has nothing against races, then you undermine the rule of law, then it is bankrupt. No-one in this country will understand that.
And now the Public Prosecutor also uses the vague concept ‘intolerance’. Yet another stupidity. The subjective word intolerance, however, is not even mentioned in the law. And what for heaven’s sake is intolerance? Are you going to decide that, members of the court?

It is not up to you to decide. Nor to the Supreme Court or even the European Court . The law itself must determine what is punishable. We, representatives, are elected by the people to determine clearly and visibly in the law for everyone what is punishable and what is not.

That is not up to the court. You should not do that, and certainly not on the basis of such subjective concepts which are understood differently by everyone and can easily be abused by the elite to ban unwelcome opinions of the opposition. Do not start this, I tell you.
Mr. President, Members of the Court,
Our ancestors fought for freedom and democracy. They suffered, many gave their lives. We owe our freedoms and the rule of law to these heroes.

But the most important freedom, the cornerstone of our democracy, is freedom of speech. The freedom to think what you want and to say what you think.

If we lose that freedom, we lose everything. Then, The Netherlands cease to exist, then the efforts of all those who suffered and fought for us are useless. From the freedom fighters for our independence in the Golden Age to the resistance heroes in World War II. I ask you: Stand in their tradition. Stand for freedom of expression.
By asking a conviction, the Public Prosecutor, as an accomplice of the established order, as a puppet of the government, asks to silence an opposition politician. And, hence, silence millions of Dutch. I tell you: The problems with Moroccans will not be solved this way, but will only increase.

For people will sooner be silent and say less because they are afraid of being called racist, because they are afraid of being sentenced. If I am convicted, then everyone who says anything about Moroccans will fear to be called a racist.
Mr. President, Members of the Court, I conclude.
A worldwide movement is emerging that puts an end to the politically correct doctrines of the elites and the media which are subordinate to them.
That has been proven by Brexit.
That has been proven by the US elections.
That is about to be proven in Austria and Italy .
That will be proven next year in France , Germany , and The Netherlands.
The course of things is about to take a different turn. Citizens no longer tolerate it.
And I tell you, the battle of the elite against the people will be won by the people. Here, too, you will not be able to stop this, but rather accelerate it. We will win, the Dutch people will win and it will remember well who was on the right side of history.
Common sense will prevail over politically correct arrogance.
Because everywhere in the West, we are witnessing the same phenomenon.
The voice of freedom cannot be imprisoned; it rings like a bell.
Everywhere, ever more people are saying what they think.
They do not want to lose their land, they do not want to lose their freedom.
They demand politicians who take them seriously, who listen to them, who speak on their behalf. It is a genuine democratic revolt. The wind of change and renewal blows everywhere. Including here, in The Netherlands.
As I said:
I am standing here on behalf of millions of Dutch citizens.
I do not speak just on behalf of myself.
My voice is the voice of many.
And, so, I ask you.
not only on behalf of myself,
but in the name of all those Dutch citizens:
Acquit me!
Acquit us!

Human Rights Disgrace: Geert Wilders Convicted of “Hate” for Criticizing Moslem Invaders

  • “It would have been better if the Dutch state had sent a clear signal [to terrorists] via a Dutch court that we foster a broad notion of the freedom of expression in the Netherlands.” — Paul Cliteur, Professor of Jurisprudence, Leiden University.
  • The historic dimension of Wilders’s conviction is related not only to the terrible injustice done to this MP, but that it was the Netherlands that, for the first time in Europe, criminalized dissenting opinions about Islam.
  • “I will never be silent. You will not be able to stop me… And that is what we stand for. For freedom and for our beautiful Netherlands.” — Geert Wilders, Dutch MP and leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV).
  • “We have a lot of guests who are trying to take over the house.” — Pym Fortuyn, later shot to death to “defend Dutch Muslims from persecution.”
  • Before being slaughtered, clinging to a basket, Theo van Gogh begged his assassin: “Can we talk about this?” But can we talk?

A country whose most outspoken filmmaker was slaughtered by an Islamist; whose bravest refugee, hunted by a fatwa, fled to the U.S.; whose cartoonists must live under protection, had better think twice before condemning a Member of Parliament, whose comments about Islam have forced him to live under 24-hour protection for more than a decade, for “hate speech.” Poor Erasmus! The Netherlands is no longer a safe haven for free thinkers. It is the Nightmare for Free Speech.

The most prominent politician in the Netherlands, MP Geert Wilders, has just been convicted of “inciting discrimination and insulting a minority group,” for asking at a really if there should be fewer Moroccans in the Netherlands. Many newly-arrived Moroccans in the Netherlands seem to have been responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime there.

Paul Cliteur, Professor of Jurisprudence at Leiden University, who was called as an expert witness, summed up the message coming from the court: “It would have been better if the Dutch state had sent a clear signal [to terrorists] via a Dutch court that we foster a broad notion of the freedom of expression in the Netherlands.”

Here are just a few details to help understand what Wilders experiences every day because of his ideas: No visitors are allowed into his office except after a long wait to be checked. The Dutch airline KLM refused to board him on a flight to Moscow for reasons of “security.” His entourage is largely anonymous. When a warning level rises, he does not know where he will spend the night. For months, he was able to see his wife only twice a week, in a secure apartment, and then only when the police allowed it. The Parliament had to place him in the less visible part of the building, in order better to protect him. He often wears a bulletproof vest to speak in public. When he goes to a restaurant, his security detail must first check the place out.

Wilders’s life is a nightmare. “I am in jail,” he has said; “they are walking around free.”

The historic dimension of Wilders’s conviction is related not only to the terrible injustice done to this MP, but that it was the Netherlands that, for the first time in Europe, criminalized dissenting opinions about Islam.

The Netherlands is a very small country; whatever happens to this enclave is seen in the rest of Europe. The Netherlands refused to surrender to the Spanish invasion. It was from Rotterdam, the second-largest Dutch city, that the Founding Fathers left to create the United States of America. It was to the Netherlands that some of the most brave, original European philosophers and writers — Descartes, Rousseau, Locke, Sade, Molière, Hugo, Swift and Spinoza — had to flee to publish their books..

Twelve years ago, the Netherlands was again plunged into fear for the first time since World War II. In Linnaeusstraat, a district of Amsterdam, Mohammed Bouyeri, a Muslim extremist, ambushed the filmmaker Theo van Gogh and slaughtered him, then pinned on his chest a letter threatening the lives of Geert Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Before that murder, Pim Fortuyn, a professor who had formed his own party to save the country from Islamization, was shot to death to “defend Dutch Muslims from persecution.”

Twelve years ago, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (left) was assassinated by an Islamist who pinned on van Gogh’s chest a letter threatening the life of Geert Wilders (right). Today Wilders, the most prominent politician in the Netherlands, lives in hiding under round-the-clock protection.

Fortuyn had said, “We have a lot of guests who are trying to take over the house.”

Since then, many Dutch artists have capitulated to fear.

Sooreh Hera, from Iran, submitted her photos to the Gemeentemuseum Museum in The Hague. One of these works depicted Mohammed and Ali. After many threats, the museum proposed that it would acquire the photos without publishing them and that one day, perhaps, when the situation was calmer, they might show them then. Hera refused: it would have been self-censorship, a sad day for the West. Rants Tjan, director of Museum Gouda, bravely offered to exhibit her censored images, but that event was later cancelled, too. Hera was forced to go into hiding.

Paul Cliteur, a critic of multiculturalism, announced that he would no longer write for Dutch newspapers about Islam, for fear of reprisals: “With the murder of van Gogh, everyone who writes takes a certain risk. That is a scary development. What I am doing do is self-censorship, absolutely….”

Then a columnist, Hasna el Maroudi, from the newspaper NRC Handelsblad, stopped writing, after receiving threats.

The Dutch artist Rachid Ben Ali, irreverent about Islam, no longer satirizes Muslims.

 

Several artists still refuse to mention Theo Van Gogh, so as not to “contribute to… divisions”, according to the New York Times. Translation: They are afraid. Who would not be?

In the Oosterpark, a steel sculpture by the artist Jeroen Henneman, dedicated to Van Gogh, is entitled “De Schreeuw” (“The Scream”). But it is a scream you hardly hear in the Dutch society.

What you do hear is the defiant protest after the conviction of a brave MP, Geert Wilders: “I will never be silent. You will not be able to stop me… And that is what we stand for. For freedom and for our beautiful Netherlands.”

Before being slaughtered, clinging to a basket, Theo van Gogh begged his assassin: “Can we talk about this?

But can we talk?

Ask Geert Wilders, just the latest brave victim of Europe’s Bolshevik thought police.

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