The Death of Freedom of Speech

Today is a black day for the Netherlands. A judge (?) ordered that Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) politician Geert Wilders must be prosecuted for his criticism of islam. Note that the ruling (again, like all other criticism of Wilders) mixes muslims and islam, where Wilders always has maintained a clear division between the two. A deliberate falsification. This marks the end of Free Speech in the Netherlands.

From the PVV website:

The Freedom Party (PVV) is shocked by the Amsterdam Court of Appeal’s decision to prosecute Geert Wilders for his statements and opinions. Geert Wilders considers this ruling an all-out assault on freedom of speech.

Geert Wilders: “Apparently this is The Netherlands today. If you speak out you might be prosecuted. To participate in public debate has become a dangerous activity.”

“If I have to appear in court, not only I will be prosecuted, but also hundreds of thousands of Dutch citizens who reject the Islamisation of the West. In Dutch Parliament only the Party for Freedom is willing to speak up for the preservation of our culture and our many freedoms.”

The Freedom Party leader now faces legal proceedings that will probably take years to conclude and will also involve enormous legal fees.

“We depend on small donations. The Freedom Party is the only party in Parliament that does not accept any government funding. This court decision jeopardizes the very existence of the Freedom Party. We simply cannot afford the enormous legal expenses.”

“This is a black day for freedom.”

Personally, I think it's not so much about whether Wilders can be convicted of hate speech; there are Dutch politicians, like Socialist Party's can't-keep-my-hands-to-myself-with-women Harry van Bommel, who openly called for an intifada by Hamas last week, which really is calling for violence, but these have nothing to fear, they do not even have to leave parliament.

The real goal here is to remove the only non-Cultural Marxist party from the political stage. As with Pim Fortuyn earlier, they are well aware that they cannot reach that objective democratically; too many people are getting fed up with the fascist bunch of islamists that's currently in power. They cannot repeat the trick they did on Fortuyn, so they had to think of something else. And they found it: bankruptcy.

Whether or not the state can win this case is irrelevant; the state finances itself with money extorted from its workers, called taxmoney. Wilders has to pay for his defences himself. The state has bottomless pockets, Wilders does not. Wilders party is the only party that does not accept state-subsidizing, but is financed by private gifts. Once Wilders is bankrupt, his party will be gone: objective achieved. Even if the state would lose, and have to pay damages to Wilders, he'd have to start from scratch again.

The man's already under permanent surveillance because of threats on his life, and now he's being financially challenged as well. And the state can repeat this trick as often as it likes: there's no hope of winning.

As Vlaams Belang's Filip Dewinter stated: "This is an attempted murder on the PVV."

It's just a different tactic to what was chosen for Pim Fortuyn.