http://www.smh.com.au/world/wilders-did-not-defame-muslims-20110623-1ghkh.html
Wilders did not defame Muslims June 24, 2011 Dutch politician Geert Wilders. Photo: AFP AMSTERDAM: The Dutch Freedom Party leader, Geert Wilders, has been acquitted of charges that he defamed Muslims, ending a three-year prosecution that he described as a bid to restrict his freedom of speech. Mr Wilders, 47, was charged with inciting hatred and discrimination and insulting Muslims for calling the Koran ''fascist'' and comparing it to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf in a 2007 Dutch newspaper editorial. A year later, he released a movie, Fitna, in which he urged Muslims to rip out ''hate-preaching'' verses from the book. ''You have spoken in a hurtful and also shocking way,'' Presiding Judge Marcel van Oosten said in the Amsterdam district court yesterday. Even so, ''the court finds, in the broadest context, that you have to be able to propagate the message of such a film''. The judge said that Mr Wilders's claims that Islam is violent by nature and his calls for a ban on Muslim immigration and the Koran must be seen in a wider context of debate over immigration policy and could not be directly linked to increased discrimination against Dutch Muslims. Mr Wilders's supporters applauded and he smiled as he left the courtroom. Mr Wilders, whose party backs the minority Dutch coalition government, has been under police protection since a Muslim radical murdered the filmmaker, Theo van Gogh, in 2004. Bloomberg, Agence France-Presse Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/wilders-did-not-defame-muslims-20110623-1ghkh.html#ixzz1Q7ulQal1 [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Post message: [email protected] Subscribe : [email protected] Unsubscribe : [email protected] List owner : [email protected] Homepage : http://proletar.8m.com/Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/proletar/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: [email protected] [email protected] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [email protected] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
