Mister Speaker, judges of the court,I would like to make use of my right to speak for a few minutes.
Freedom is the most precious of all our attainments and the most vulnerable. People have devoted their lives to it and given their lives for it. Our freedom in this country is the outcome of centuries. It is the consequence of a history that knows no equal and has brought us to where we are now.
I believe with all my heart and soul that the freedom in the Netherlands is threatened. That what our heritage is, what generations could only dream about, that this freedom is no longer a given, no longer self-evident.
I devote my life to the defence of our freedom. I know what the risks are and I pay a price for it every day. I do not complain about it; it is my own decision. I see that as my duty and it is why I am standing here.
I know that the words I use are sometimes harsh, but they are never rash. It is not my intention to spare the ideology of conquest and destruction, but I am not any more out to offend people. I have nothing against Muslims.
I have a problem with Islam and the Islamization of our country because Islam is at odds with freedom.
Future generations will wonder to themselves how we in 2010, in this place, in this room, earned our most precious attainment. Whether there is freedom in this debate for both parties and thus also for the critics of Islam, or that only one side of the discussion may be heard in the Netherlands?
Whether freedom of speech in the Netherlands applies to everyone or only to a few? The answer to this is at once the answer to the question whether freedom still has a home in this country.
Freedom was never the property of a small group, but was always the heritage of us all. We are all blessed by it.
Lady Justice wears a blindfold, but she has splendid hearing. I hope that she hears the following sentences, loud and clear:
It is not only a right, but also the duty of free people to speak against every ideology that threatens freedom. Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States was right: The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
I hope that the freedom of speech shall triumph in this trial.
In conclusion, Mister Speaker, judges of the court.
This trial is obviously about the freedom of speech. But this trial is also about the process of establishing the truth.
Are the statements that I have made and the comparisons that I have taken, as cited in the summons, true? If something is true then can it still be punishable? This is why I urge you to not only submit to my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of freedom of speech.
But I ask you explicitly to honour my request to hear witnesses and experts on the subject of Islam. I refer not only to Mister Jansen and Mister Admiraal, but also to the witness/experts from Israel, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Without these witnesses, I cannot defend myself properly and, in my opinion, this would not be an fair trial.
With thanks to JihadWatch
Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Justice. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Geert Wilders's speech at his trial today
Monday, October 12, 2009
Israel Should Investigate Goldstone
By Richard Landes Judge Richard Goldstone has presented his report on Gaza and, among other recommendations, suggested that Israel conduct its own inquiry.
Israeli government officials, assuming he meant an investigation like his into Israel's misdeeds, declined, noting that that they have and continue to investigate their army's behavior on a constant basis.
Israeli government officials, assuming he meant an investigation like his into Israel's misdeeds, declined, noting that that they have and continue to investigate their army's behavior on a constant basis.
But after reading most of the report, another possibility presents itself.
It rapidly becomes clear to any reader not driven by a thirst for "dirt" on Israel, that Goldstone's work represents a new low in the tragically deteriorating world of international justice.
It fails on every count, from its handling of evidence, to its legal reasoning, to its unstated but pervasive assumptions of Israeli guilt and Palestinian innocence, to its astonishing conclusion (from someone who knows the gruesome details of Bosnia and Rwanda), that Israeli behavior was so bad it might well constitute "crimes against humanity."
Source: JPost
The writer teaches history at Boston University, blogs at the Augean Stables (http://www.theaugeanstables.com ) and the Second Draft (http://www.seconddraft.org), and has just launched a new collective website: Understanding the Goldstone Report (http://www.goldstonereport.org ). The internet version of this article contains numerous links.
Friday, August 28, 2009
The Failure to Administer Justice
Another Lockerbie Tragedy
By Michael Reagan
At a time when civilized nations are continuing to wage a collective and challenging fight against terrorist organizations, and the rogue nations that harbor them, this week’s release by Scottish officials of one of the masterminds behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing constitutes a major setback. Just as importantly, it has had a devastating effect on the families and friends of those lost at the hands of the cold-blooded killers.
As many of you will recall, on December 21, 1988, a few short days before Christmas, a 747 en route from London to New York was downed by a bomb detonating while the plane was over the now-famous Lockerbie, Scotland. All 243 passengers and 16 crew members (189 of which were U.S. citizens) were killed as well as 11 innocents on the ground – one of the most shocking and costly terrorist acts preceding the events of 9/11.
Shortly after the conclusion of an intense investigation, the United States and British authorities indicted two Libyan intelligence agents for their roles in the bombing -- in essence, concluding that the bombing was authorized by the Libyan government and carried out by the named suspects. Read more ...
At a time when civilized nations are continuing to wage a collective and challenging fight against terrorist organizations, and the rogue nations that harbor them, this week’s release by Scottish officials of one of the masterminds behind the 1988 Lockerbie bombing constitutes a major setback. Just as importantly, it has had a devastating effect on the families and friends of those lost at the hands of the cold-blooded killers.
As many of you will recall, on December 21, 1988, a few short days before Christmas, a 747 en route from London to New York was downed by a bomb detonating while the plane was over the now-famous Lockerbie, Scotland. All 243 passengers and 16 crew members (189 of which were U.S. citizens) were killed as well as 11 innocents on the ground – one of the most shocking and costly terrorist acts preceding the events of 9/11.
Shortly after the conclusion of an intense investigation, the United States and British authorities indicted two Libyan intelligence agents for their roles in the bombing -- in essence, concluding that the bombing was authorized by the Libyan government and carried out by the named suspects. Read more ...
Source: FPM
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Why Islamic Law is the Antithesis of Equal Justice
By Daniel Greenfield
In Sudan a dozen women were sentenced to be flogged for wearing pants. Some of them were Christian, but that has never really mattered, as the essential premise of Islamic law is that it is inherently superior to every other law. Naturally no men have ever been sentenced for wearing pants. That is a law that applies only to women, because there is a fundamental difference between Islamic law and Western law, not simply in morality or structure-- but in equality.
A Muslim man will never be sentenced to be flogged for wearing pants, just as a Muslim Imam will never be tried for blasphemy no matter how many ugly things he says about Hindusim, Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism. Blasphemy is a charge that is meaningful only in relation to the doctrine that is at the heart of Islamic law, that is Islam itself.
Islamic law is law made by Muslim men for the benefit of Muslim men, and the detriment of everyone else. It is the product of an inherently unequal system, designed to perpetuate that system.
Under it non-Muslims are inferior to Muslims because by rejecting the "truth" of Islam, they cast doubts about their moral fitness. A non-Muslim is an infidel who drinks alcohol, eats pork and has forbidden sexual relations. As far as Islamic law is concerned he is already of poor moral character and a criminal.
Women are inferior to men, as they are lower in status than men. When Mohammed declared, or was said to declare in Islamic scripture, that, "I also saw the Hell-fire and I had never seen such a horrible sight. I saw that most of the inhabitants were women", he was articulating the top down theology of a cult that defined sinfulness in terms of position of tribal power. Therefore in the Mohammedan vision of hell, the underworld was to be populated mostly by women for their ingratitude to their husbands, who under Islam were also their masters. And slaves are defined as moral to the degree that they serve their masters.
Under the circular logic of Islam, women are second class citizens because they are untrustworthy, and untrustworthy because they are second class citizens. This makes women automatically suspect of all sorts of things.
It is why a woman who was raped is more at fault than the man who raped her. In the Islamic worldview, which is itself a carryover of Bedouin tribalism, a rapist has taken someone else's property.
By contrast the woman who was raped was careless with the property of her husband or her father. Whether the woman had consensual sex or was raped does not matter very much, because in either case she is only property that was damaged. Not a human being. The honor killing is simply a male relative or spouse destroying what Islamic tribalism considers to be "damaged property". Her consent is not considered significant, because Islamic law does not take the agency of a woman seriously, or treat her as competent to make decision on the level of a man in the first place.
It is why the woman is always at fault. While Western jurisprudence considers diminished capacity to be an extenuating circumstance, Islamic jurisprudence considers it to be a statement of guilt.
That is because Western jurisprudence presumes innocence, while Islamic jurisprudence presumes guilt. The lower the role, the more readily the presumption of guilt is applied. Since Islam treats all people as inherently sinful, and therefore perpetually guilty, the higher the form of awareness, the more likely the Muslim is to avoid sin. A Muslim mam has more agency than a woman, and is more likely to do the right thing. A Muslim woman is considered to have less agency, which is why she must have a husband to master her, and why Islam considers her more likely to be at fault.
Like slaves, women can only demonstrate their worth through submission to their masters. Muslim men in turn can only demonstrate their worth through submission to the will of Allah as expressed by the Imams. Since the core of Islamic law is held by Arab Muslims, they effectively serve as superior to non-Arab Muslims. And throughout it all, one thing is missing. Equality under the law and equal justice for all. Read more here ...
In Sudan a dozen women were sentenced to be flogged for wearing pants. Some of them were Christian, but that has never really mattered, as the essential premise of Islamic law is that it is inherently superior to every other law. Naturally no men have ever been sentenced for wearing pants. That is a law that applies only to women, because there is a fundamental difference between Islamic law and Western law, not simply in morality or structure-- but in equality.
A Muslim man will never be sentenced to be flogged for wearing pants, just as a Muslim Imam will never be tried for blasphemy no matter how many ugly things he says about Hindusim, Christianity, Judaism or Buddhism. Blasphemy is a charge that is meaningful only in relation to the doctrine that is at the heart of Islamic law, that is Islam itself.
Islamic law is law made by Muslim men for the benefit of Muslim men, and the detriment of everyone else. It is the product of an inherently unequal system, designed to perpetuate that system.
Under it non-Muslims are inferior to Muslims because by rejecting the "truth" of Islam, they cast doubts about their moral fitness. A non-Muslim is an infidel who drinks alcohol, eats pork and has forbidden sexual relations. As far as Islamic law is concerned he is already of poor moral character and a criminal.
Women are inferior to men, as they are lower in status than men. When Mohammed declared, or was said to declare in Islamic scripture, that, "I also saw the Hell-fire and I had never seen such a horrible sight. I saw that most of the inhabitants were women", he was articulating the top down theology of a cult that defined sinfulness in terms of position of tribal power. Therefore in the Mohammedan vision of hell, the underworld was to be populated mostly by women for their ingratitude to their husbands, who under Islam were also their masters. And slaves are defined as moral to the degree that they serve their masters.
Under the circular logic of Islam, women are second class citizens because they are untrustworthy, and untrustworthy because they are second class citizens. This makes women automatically suspect of all sorts of things.
It is why a woman who was raped is more at fault than the man who raped her. In the Islamic worldview, which is itself a carryover of Bedouin tribalism, a rapist has taken someone else's property.
By contrast the woman who was raped was careless with the property of her husband or her father. Whether the woman had consensual sex or was raped does not matter very much, because in either case she is only property that was damaged. Not a human being. The honor killing is simply a male relative or spouse destroying what Islamic tribalism considers to be "damaged property". Her consent is not considered significant, because Islamic law does not take the agency of a woman seriously, or treat her as competent to make decision on the level of a man in the first place.
It is why the woman is always at fault. While Western jurisprudence considers diminished capacity to be an extenuating circumstance, Islamic jurisprudence considers it to be a statement of guilt.
That is because Western jurisprudence presumes innocence, while Islamic jurisprudence presumes guilt. The lower the role, the more readily the presumption of guilt is applied. Since Islam treats all people as inherently sinful, and therefore perpetually guilty, the higher the form of awareness, the more likely the Muslim is to avoid sin. A Muslim mam has more agency than a woman, and is more likely to do the right thing. A Muslim woman is considered to have less agency, which is why she must have a husband to master her, and why Islam considers her more likely to be at fault.
Like slaves, women can only demonstrate their worth through submission to their masters. Muslim men in turn can only demonstrate their worth through submission to the will of Allah as expressed by the Imams. Since the core of Islamic law is held by Arab Muslims, they effectively serve as superior to non-Arab Muslims. And throughout it all, one thing is missing. Equality under the law and equal justice for all. Read more here ...
Source: CFP
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Jihadists Against Justice: Islamists deflect UN attention from Sudan, and deny starving Sudanese Western philanthropy.
By Joseph Klein
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his ruling clique have murdered hundreds of thousands of indigenous black African residents in Darfur and other parts of Sudan. They have caused millions more to suffer needless famine, disease and broken families as a result of forced displacements. Al-Bashir’s supporters within the Arab League, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas deny the gravity of the crimes being committed by Sudan’s Arab Muslim rulers and militia against these defenseless Muslims of another race. Instead, they do everything they can to deflect the United Nations’ attention toward their customary bogeymen - Western racism, neo-colonialism and Zionism. Some African regimes have turned a deaf ear to the cries of Sudan’s suffering black population and have bought into this anti-Western line. China, Sudan’s leading financial partner, has watched out for its own interests in the UN Security Council by protecting the Sudanese regime from any harsh economic measures. Read more ...
Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir and his ruling clique have murdered hundreds of thousands of indigenous black African residents in Darfur and other parts of Sudan. They have caused millions more to suffer needless famine, disease and broken families as a result of forced displacements. Al-Bashir’s supporters within the Arab League, Iran, Hezbollah, and Hamas deny the gravity of the crimes being committed by Sudan’s Arab Muslim rulers and militia against these defenseless Muslims of another race. Instead, they do everything they can to deflect the United Nations’ attention toward their customary bogeymen - Western racism, neo-colonialism and Zionism. Some African regimes have turned a deaf ear to the cries of Sudan’s suffering black population and have bought into this anti-Western line. China, Sudan’s leading financial partner, has watched out for its own interests in the UN Security Council by protecting the Sudanese regime from any harsh economic measures. Read more ...
Source: FrontPage Magazine
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