Wilders cleared of inciting hatred against Islam

THE BOUNDARIES of free speech in Europe have widened after a Dutch court acquitted politician Geert Wilders of inciting hatred against Muslims when he compared Islam with Nazism and called for a ban on the Koran.

Political analysts say the ruling will likely embolden Wilders and other right-wing populists across the continent to ramp up their anti-immigrant rhetoric, with remarks like Wilders’ call for a “head rag tax” now placed within the boundaries of fair political debate.

The ruling did lay down a clear limit: calls for violence remain out of bounds. Wilders, who has lived under constant police protection due to death threats since 2004, has never called for violence or endorsed it.

Presiding Judge Marcel van Oosten said some of Wilders’ comments — such as saying foreign influences are “breeding” in the Netherlands and threatening to overrun Dutch culture — may be “crude and denigrating”. But he said they did not amount to inciting hatred and must be seen in a wider context of a fierce national debate over immigration policy and multiculturalism.

While the United States has enshrined the right to freedom of speech in its Constitution, many European nations introduced hate-speech laws in the wake of World War II, determined to prevent the scapegoating of minorities.

Van Oosten cited one of Wilders’ most incendiary statements — “the core of the problem is the fascist Islam, the sick ideology of Allah and Mohammed as laid down in the Islamic Mein Kampf: the Koran” — saying that criticism of a religion and its followers is not illegal.

Wilders sat stone-faced while the judge read the ruling, but smiled broadly and shook hands with his lawyers after the verdict. His cheering supporters hugged each other in the public gallery, and Wilders waved to them and grinned as he left the courtroom.

“It’s not only an acquittal for me, but a victory for freedom of expression in the Netherlands,” he said afterwards.

“Fortunately you’re allowed to discuss Islam in public debate and you’re not muzzled.”

Political science professor Andre Krouwel of Amsterdam’s Free University said Wilders might have been convicted a decade ago, but his ideas have since entered the mainstream. Wilders’ Freedom political party is now the country’s third-largest in parliament and it is propping up an all-conservative Dutch government that agrees with much of his right-wing platform.

“[The verdict] will further the inward-looking and, to some extent, xenophobic atmosphere in the Netherlands,” predicted professor Leo Lucassen, chair of the Social History department at Leiden University.

The verdict comes a week after the government announced plans to end programmes that help integrate immigrants into Dutch society, which “fuels this idea of immigrants who are basically an alien element to the Dutch people”, Lucassen said.

The government also is moving to ban Muslim face-coverings, as France has done, and to further slash immigration. Dutch Muslims who pressed for the trial said Wilders’ strident anti-Islam tone has already led to increased discrimination and harassment against them, and even attacks on mosques. But Krouwel said seeking remedy in the courts proved an “incredible mistake” because yesterday’s decision “legalised populist rhetoric”.

“Inside the Netherlands and outside, politicians will now go the same way: to the edge of what is allowed,” he said. “Right-wing politicians in other countries will be able to point to the Netherlands and say, ‘They can say it there, why not here?’ ”