 By Robert Spencer Appeasement and dhimmitude: the Dutch authorities are hoping that if they throw Wilders to the wolves, they will stem the tide of the jihad and Islamization in the Netherlands. Free Speech Death Watch Update: "Breaking: Geert Wilders on trial Janary [sic] 2010," from Klein Verzet, September 12: Breaking news from the Netherlands. Dutch biggest newspaper calls it the trial of the century (NL), because the government today announced it is going to trial Geert Wilders on January 20th (See also: the earlier court rulling that made it possible).
The timing is remarkable, because it’s just before the municipality elections, a busy time for the politician. Busy or not, Geert Wilder [sic] will have to defend him self in criminal court for speaking out against Islam. So via multiculturalism and political correctness, Sharia norms are now being enforced by the Dutch secular authorities. The charges brought against him are: racism and hate mongering (no actual hate crimes have ever been connected to him, his political movement or his speeches). Renowned criminal trial lawyer Bram Moszkowicz will represent him durring [sic] the trial. It’s still unknown what his defense will look like. But in today’s paper Wilders says he might call radical Imams and other idiots to the stand in support of his defense. “I find it horrible that I’m prosecuted” says Wilders. “This is a political trial and it’s sad that I'm prosecuted as a criminal for only voicing my political opinions. I hope free speech will prevail. [But] I am convinced that the trial can only lead to my acquittal”.... Read it all. Source: JihadWatch
 THE HAGUE - Ehsan Jami may become a council-member for the Party for Freedom (PVV).He took part in a session on Saturday in which party leader Geert Wilders was grooming candidate council members for the two cities in which the party is running in the approaching local elections. The meeting, like the earlier sessions that Wilders held for his future council members, took place in secrecy.
In the Lower House building, where little or nothing generally happens on Saturday morning, Wilders himself gave lessons to the candidates who will be on the electoral lists in The Hague and Almere for his party in the March 2010 local elections, Algemeen Dagblad reported yesterday. It is unclear what role Jami wants to and can play in the party. Neither Wilders nor Jami responded to questions on this, the newspaper added. Jami got onto the council of Leidschendam-Voorburg for Labour (PvdA) in 2006. He became nationally known when he announced he was setting up a Committee for Ex-Muslims.
The PvdA subsequently booted him out. Source: Dutch News
By Nissan Ratzlav-Katz Virulent anti-Semitic content thrives on a Dutch social media website used by nearly half of the entire population of Holland, according to a report released Thursday. Yet, many of the online instigators appear to be Dutch-speaking Arabs. The report, produced by investigators from Yad VaShem, the Dutch-language Israel Facts Monitorgroup and the Network on Anti-Semitism based in the Netherlands, was provided to all the political parties in the Netherlands, as well as to members of the Dutch government. As the Internet is becoming an increasingly important and influential facet of Dutch life, the investigators are hoping to provide some insight into how it is used in the Netherlands to propagate anti-Israel rhetoric and anti-Semitic views. "Anti-Semitism and hatred toward Israel containing anti-Semitic content is a common phenomenon on the Internet in the Netherlands," the report declares. "Remarks which were unthinkable only ten years ago are now common practice and do not seem to raise eyebrows anymore." In fact, after three months of regular monitoring, the investigators concluded, "The climate in which the public debate about Israel and the Middle East conflict is taking place on the Internet is deteriorating." Titled "Anti-Israel and anti-Semitic activity on the Internet in the Netherlands", the report presents examples and trends of anti-Israel blood libels, violent anti-Semitic hate speech and, simultaneously, Holocaust denial, smearing Israelis as Nazis, and calls for returning Jews to the death camps. For the purpose of gauging online Dutch social media, the investigators monitored closed and open groups on the Facebook-like Hyves social networking website, which can claim around nine million members, and the talkback section of de Volkskrant, one of the leading newspapers in Holland. Open Praise for Suicide Bombings
Among the public groups on Hyves, there are 35 groups that the report defines as either "pro-Palestinian" or "anti-Israel". The majority of these groups, according to the investigators, "are run by young Arab immigrants or descendants of Arab immigrants living in the Netherlands." While the most popular anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian groups have several thousands of members, the largest pro-Israel Hyves forum has 900. Read more here ... Source: INN
 An Arab organisation is to be put on trial in the Netherlands over its publication of a cartoon deemed offensive to Jews, prosecutors say. The cartoon, published by the Arab European League (AEL) on its website, questions the Holocaust. It said the decision to prosecute illustrated bias against Muslims. It said the same standards were not applied to the Dutch MP Geert Wilders, who made a film including cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Last month prosecutors said they would not put the far-right MP on trial for distributing the controversial Danish cartoons, which caused a storm of protest after their publication in 2005. However, he is still being investigated separately for inciting hatred against Muslims by making statements comparing Islam to Nazism. But Dutch prosecutors said the AEL cartoon was "discriminatory" and "offensive to Jews as a group... because it offends Jews on the basis of their race and/or religion". The cartoon shows two men standing near a pile of bones at "Auswitch" (sic). One says "I don't think they're Jews". The other replies: "We have to get to the six million somehow." Read more here,,,, Source: BBC News H/T: GH
August 19 Dutch prosecutors declined on Tuesday to put far-right MP Geert Wilders on trial for distributing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed. But they found that a Holocaust-denying cartoon in a separate case was punishable. The prosecution service had received complaints about Wilders reproducing controversial Danish cartoons of the prophet on his website, as well as their display on a television programme. It had also received complaints about two cartoons published on the website of the Arab-European League (AEL) lobby group, one of which allegedly shows Jews denying that the Nazi Holocaust happened. The Danish cartoons and their reproduction were not punishable, the prosecution service said in a statement. "The cartoons are about the Prophet Mohamed, but don't say anything about Muslims. None of the cartoons are offensive towards Muslims or contribute to hatred, discrimination or violence against Muslims." The Holocaust cartoon "is punishable because it offends Jews on the basis of their race and/or religion." The AEL has agreed to remove the cartoon from its Dutch website, said the statement. "If it complies, charges will be provisionally dropped." The Mohammed cartoons originally appeared in Danish newspapers in September 2005, sparking protests across the Muslim world. Five people died in Pakistan in protests in February 2006. In a separate investigation, Wilders faces prosecution for inciting hatred against Muslims by making statements comparing Islam to Nazism. He made a 17-minute film, Fitna, which UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called "offensively anti-Islamic". The screening of the film last year prompted also protests in Muslim nations. Source: Sydney Morning Herald
'Devil's Advocate' jury finds no proof he was behind Sept. 11 By Scott Roxborough April 9 BERLIN -- A Dutch TV jury has found Osama bin Laden not guilty of the Sept. 11 attacks. In the conclusion Wednesday night to the show "Devil's Advocate" on Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2, the jury of two men and three women, along with the studio audience, ruled there was no proof bin Laden was the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001.The Netherlands, home to "Big Brother" creator Endemol, is known for being on the cutting edge of format-based television. But even for Dutch standards, "Devil's Advocate," from Amsterdam production house AVRO, pushes the envelope. The show features star defense attorney Gerard Spong standing up for some of the world's worst criminals. In the latest show, Spong was able to convince the jury that bin Laden's connection to Sept. 11 was a product of "Western propaganda." The jury also ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove bin Laden was the real head of terrorist network al-Qaida. However, the jury did rule that bin Laden is a "terrorist who has misused Islam." The show is certain to provide further ammunition in the already heated Dutch debate over immigration and the country's large Muslim minority. The Netherlands saw a sharp rise in anti-immigration and anti-Islamic sentiment after the 2004 murder of Dutch director Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim extremist. Spong has been at the center of the debate, supporting legal action against anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders. Source: The Hollywood Reporter
 By Peggy Shapiro According to Shariah law, it is a crime to engage in speech or writings that 'defame' Islam or otherwise offend its followers. It is a crime, not only in Muslim states, but in Western democracies, and may soon be coming to a city near you unless we stand up to the worldwide attacks against free speech. It appears that some brave souls, including a U.S. Senator, are pushing back against the global effort to stifle our freedom of expression. In Amsterdam, the capital of freedom and tolerance, a Dutch Muslim nearly decapitated filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had made a movie that criticized the mistreatment of women in Islam. Dutch cartoonist Gregorius Nekschot's depiction of Mohammed set mobs of Muslims in a rampage not only in Holland, but all over the world. Dutch Member of Parliament Geert Wilders produced a 17-minute film Fitna, which juxtaposes quotations from the Koran and documentary footage of Islamic leaders inciting violence (jihad) based on those quotations. Wilder is on 24-hour police protection since al-Qaeda issued a fatwa calling for Wilder's murder. Read more ...Source: American Thinker
January 28
CAN this be right? Last month I wondered aloud whether 2009 would differ from previous years and see a reinvigoration of the West’s commitment to free speech. Instead, with January not yet over, another assault on freedom of expression has arrived portending yet another year of stifled speech.
Last Wednesday, a Dutch court ordered the prosecution of far right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders for inciting hatred and discrimination against Muslims in his film, Fitna. The three-judge appeals panel said: “The instigation of hatred in a democratic society constitutes such a serious matter (that it is necessary) to draw a clear boundary in the public debate.”
In response to many public complaints against Wilders, the court rejected the original view of Dutch prosecutors who, back in June, said: “That comments are hurtful and offensive for a large number of Muslims does not mean that they are punishable. Freedom of expression fulfils an essential role in public debate in a democratic society. That means that offensive comments can be made in a political debate.”
It’s too bad that the judges on the appeals court felt pressured to order a prosecution. In so doing, they exposed the West’s feeble commitment to free speech. This is not about supporting the views of Wilders, who in his short film, likens the Koran to Mein Kampf, caricatures the prophet Mohammed and includes footage of Muslim acts of violence and hatred. However, it would be remiss not to point out that Wilders damns Muslims using their own actions, showing, to take just one example, Muslim demonstrators wielding “God Bless Hitler” placards.
That aside, a significant distinguishing feature between Muslim countries and the West has been our belief in freedom of expression. It was no surprise that Wilders’s controversial film led to protests in Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Indonesia. Muslim countries have a long and poor record when it comes to defending freedom of speech or allowing criticism of their faith. But when complaints in the heart of Enlightenment Europe lead prosecutors to put Wilders on trial, facing a jail term of two years for expressing his opinions, then the tyranny of thought police has truly taken hold in the West.
The Dutch MP with the flamboyant hair style has opinions that are surely offensive, perhaps hurtful and even hateful. You may say Wilders is wrong. Indeed, feel free to do so. But to prosecute a man for his offensive views is, on so many levels, even more wrong. Let me count the ways.
The Netherlands - often lauded as the home of Western civility - has mistaken tolerance for anesthesia. Eager to filter out jarring, uncomfortable views, putting us to sleep with consensus and anodyne niceness, Dutch authorities have strayed far from the true value of freedom of expression. They have forgotten progress rarely occurs without controversy. The best ideas - including those that are uncomfortable or even, at first glance, outlandish - are the ones that prevail when tested in the furnace of opposition.
It would be grand if Wilders’ colleagues in the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) and his other supporters backed him on free speech grounds rather than merely because they are opposed to Muslim immigration.
But if we truly value free speech we can’t always pick and choose our allies. Defending the expression of views we share is the easy bit. Our commitment to freedom of expression is only truly tested when we are asked to defend the expression of views by those with whom we disagree, no matter whether we find their views personally offensive.
So what say the political opponents of Wilders about his right to express his views? As so often is the case, not much. Or worse, they support the prosecution of his words and thoughts. The opportunity for short-term political advantage triumphs over long term principle with disturbing frequency.
Prosecute people for their offensive words and three things happen as sure as the sun rises in the morning. First, offensive opinions may be suppressed but that won’t make them go away. They are driven underground where they avoid the blowtorch of robust public debate and often become more powerful as they fester.
Exposing even the most offensive or hateful views to public scrutiny - whether you then argue with them or choose to ignore them - is the best way to defeat them. This was John Howard’s insight into Pauline Hanson. Her views might attract short-term support but would ultimately die naturally if exposed to the sunlight.
Second, when we prosecute people for their words, society unwittingly encourages those with hateful views to become heroes, martyrs to their cause. Though not prosecuted for her views, Hanson demonstrated this principle also in Australia. The attempt by urban elites to shut her down only strengthened her attractions in many parts of Australia.
And third, bringing actions such as those against Wilders creates some very perverse incentives. Prosecuting at the request of the thin-skinned rewards preciousness and indeed encourages it. With such returns for sensitivity we can expect increasing claims to protection from free speech and increasing censorship. The unwitting result is a society that has strayed so far from the correct understanding of free speech that The Wall Street Journal was right to suggest the Dutch have started importing Muslim standards of censorship.
The most generous interpretation of the Wilders prosecution is that good intentions have gone badly astray. But perhaps something more sinister is happening. Many in the West have a knack for dressing up their own occasional totalitarian tendencies in fine-sounding language.
The Dutch appeals court said that the prosecution of Wilders is justified on the grounds that his film was inciting violence. But it turns out that the only violence incited by Fitna, released on the internet in March 2008, was not against Muslims but by Muslims against the West.
In other words, the phrase “inciting violence” has been rendered meaningless, stretched to stifle views that merely offend. It may be sensible to prohibit words that genuinely incite violence. But the Wilders case shows how easy it is to use this test as camouflage to censor views that are uncomfortable. Writing about the increasingly vacuous claims of Islamophobia in Forbes magazine, Elisabeth Eaves suggested a good litmus test for whether a law makes any sense: “If the ‘crime’ in question can only be described using the word for an emotion, like ‘hate’ or ‘phobia,’ then we have wandered into thought-police territory.”
The Netherlands is a striking example of how a noble quest to produce a tolerant society can be hijacked by social engineers opposed to free speech. With our myriad vilification laws, Australia needs to heed the lessons from the Dutch before we make the same disastrous blunders. Source: The Australian
In the Hague, ex-Muslim Ehsan Jami has presented his English-language film entitled Interview with Mohammed. In the film, the prophet Mohammed looks back on his life and the interviewer questions him on women's rights, non-believers and Judaism.
Mr Jami says his film is not against Islam. It pays attention to what he calls the victims of Islam. He hopes the film will improve their situation.
The fifteen minute film was presented to the press in the parliamentary press centre in The Hague. It is also on the internet. Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin has criticised the showing. He says he is concerned about the image of the Netherlands in the media abroad. The minister stresses that Islam is fully respected in the Netherlands, but that there is also freedom of speech. Source: Radio Netherlands
 AMSTERDAM, 23/09/08 - At least two Amsterdam secondary schools with a Christian basis are to close during the Sugar Feast to accede to their Muslim pupils. Various other schools are also doing so, Reformatorisch Dagblad newspaper reported yesterday.
The Calvijn met Junior College in Amsterdam and the Huygens College, also in the capital, are both closing for the Sugar Feast. The Islamic festival marks the end of the Ramadan month of fasting and falls on or around 1 October this year.
The Calvijn met Junior College is closing for two days, and the Huygens College for one. Both are VMBO schools - the lowest level of secondary education - and although they are Christian, their pupils are virtually all immigrants.
The Party for Freedom (PVV) wants clarification from Education Minister Ronald Plasterk in the Lower House today. "This really cannot be allowed," in the view of PVV MP Martin Bosma. "The Netherlands is no Muslim country and will never become one either. We must never give in to the pressure of this ideology, which wants to take over the Netherlands bit by bit."
According to a spokesman for the Amarantis Education Group, under which both schools fall, the free day does not clash with its Christian principles. Various other schools throughout the Netherlands also ensure that their pupils are free on Sugar Feast day, according to Reformatorisch Dagblad. Source: NIS
By Baron Bodissey I posted H. Numan's translation and commentary last night about the webmaster in the Netherlands who was convicted of a criminal offense for "racist" writings posted not by himself, but by a visitor to his site. The first notice he received that he was criminally liable for the material posted was when the police came to arrest him - there was no prior request to remove the insulting writings. To add to the injustice, far more offensive and provocative material is routinely posted on Islamist forums and is never subjected to any punishment. H. Numan pointed out that by attacking a small, little-known website, the Dutch government has managed to set a precedent for the suppression of free speech on the internet. We should expect them to employ this precedent to go after larger and more well-known sites like Gregorius Nekschot and GeenStijl. Read more ...Source: Gates of Vienna
By David J. Rusin
A recent news item exposes the Dutch response to polygamy as a stew of accommodation, bungling, and illogic. We have witnessed these elements many times before as Western states grapple with Islamism, but their confluence in a seven-paragraph article is striking.
For starters, local Dutch officials are registering plural unions even though the practice is formally banned. The paperwork proceeds with nary a hitch as long as the people involved are immigrants whose marriages took place in countries where having more than one wife is permitted.
But this represents the least interesting part of the story. After all, Britain and the Canadian province of Ontario already grant de facto recognition of polygamy by providing added welfare benefits to men with multiple wives. Far more intriguing in the Dutch case is the manner by which the national government has been excising these data from public records.
Source: Islamist Watch
By Dancho Danchev In what appears to be a mass defacement, where several hundred domains take advantage of a shared hosting provider, Net Devilz Netherlands starting as of this Friday, an Islamic hacker known as nEt^DeViL - this is not the NetDevilz team that hijacked the DNS records of the ICANN and Photobucket in June - managed to successfully hack a couple of hundred Dutch web sites as a hacktivist response to the release of the Fitna film, a controversial film released by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament in March, 2008. How did they do it? Since all of the sites are parked on a single IP (81.4.97.190) owned by the Geenpunt.nl hosting company, compromising it means having the ability to compromise the content on all the domains hosted there, which is exactly what happened in this case. Read more ...Source: ZD NetH/T: Gramfan
 ROTTERDAM, 12/08/08 - Although polygamy is banned in the Netherlands, the marriages of Muslims who have several wives are recognised by Dutch authorities.
Registrars in the major cities, in particular, record dozens of bigamous or polygamous marriages per year. These marriages are prohibited and an offence in the Netherlands. However, polygamous marriages that take place in countries where more than one wife is permitted, such as Morocco, are accepted, newspaper NRC Handelsblad reports.
If immigrants with several wives settle in the Netherlands, the local authorities register all the marriages. However, the Central Bureau for Statistics (CBS), where all marriages are registered nationally, removes these bigamous or polygamous marriages from its files, on the assumption that administrative errors have occurred. As a result, it is not known how common the phenomenon is in the Netherlands.
Amsterdam city council has informed the CBS that the marriages are not a mistake. "We will now investigate whether this can be regarded as a trend that was previously not recognised. If this is the case, it is out task to report this," CBS researcher Jan Latten explained in NRC Handelsblad.
"At present, it is not included in our statistics," Latten pointed out. "In the same way, we delete marriages involving fourteen-year-olds. A man with two wives just cannot exist by law."
Spokesman T. Verhoeven of the Rotterdam city council disclosed that polygamous marriages are registered almost every week. "They are simply acknowledged. It is important for us to check that the documents are authentic and that the husband does not have Dutch nationality." Otherwise the construction is illegal, Verhoeven explained.
In Amsterdam, local government employees must inform the Public Prosecutors' Office (OM) if there is any suspicion of marriages of convenience or exploitation of women. But this has never happened, a spokeswoman revealed. In Rotterdam, too, the registration of bigamous or polygamous marriages is "practically never" refused, Verhoeven observed. Source: NIS
 Amsterdam, 29 July (AKI) - A court in The Hague has approved a request by Somali-born ex-MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali for witnesses to be heard in her claim for the Dutch state to pay for her security in the US, Dutch media reported on Tuesday.The Dutch government stopped paying for Hirsi Ali's police protection after she moved to the US permanently last year.
An outspoken critic of Islam and advocate of women's rights, Hirsi Ali had to live under police protection in the Netherlands after receiving death threats. She now works for a conservative US think-tank.
"Hirsi Ali clearly had protection in the Netherlands because she was in danger and probably still is," a senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations' security programme, Bibi Van Ginkel, told Adnkronos International (AKI).
"She has for some time been the voice and face of women's emancipation under Islam, and is clearly under some threat," Van Ginkel said.
Hirsi Ali's radical opinions expressed in her writings and lectures have "really insulted some people," she said.
But Hirsi Ali is a former MP and public figure, and the Dutch government should "try and arrange some kind of protection" in cooperation with the US authorities, she argued.
"The Dutch government cannot look the other way and shouldn't try and get out but find more of a solution than it has done," said Van Ginkel.
She said the Dutch government had provided some extra protection for Hirsi Ali at the beginning of her stay in the US.
Former Dutch deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm, Netherlands anti-terror chief Tjibbe Joustra and Justice Minister Ernst Hrsch Ballin, are among those Hirsi Ali has reportedly requested to be heard as witnesses.
The preliminary hearing is expected to be heard on two consecutive days later in this year. This could result in a full court case in which Hirsi Ali challenges the Dutch state to continue to pay for her security in the US.
In her orginal court application in May, Airsi Ali asked for eight witnesses to be heard, but on Monday the court said the number would initially be restricted to five.
A motion in the European Parliament to fund Hirsi Ali's US security failed in March to reach a quorum of half the deputies in the 785-member body.
Hirsi Ali has also set up a fund to finance her security in the US. "She has raised a considerable sum but it is not enough to pay for everything," Van Ginkel said.
Hirsi Ali wrote the screenplay for 'Submission', a controversial film criticising domestic violence towards Muslim women made by Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.
A Dutch-Moroccan extremist Mohammed Bouyeri murdered Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street soon after the film was aired on Dutch television.
Hirsi Ali was given round-the-clock police protection after Bouyeri pinned a letter to Van Gogh's chest containing explicit threats towards her.
She has just written a children's book with Anna Gray, entitled 'Adan and Eva', about the impossible friendship between a Muslim boy and a Jewish girl.
Hirsi Ali's co-author is writing under a pseudonym, as she fears the book could put her life in danger. It is being translated into English, Danish, Spanish and Italian.Source: AKI
 By Diana West THE HAGUE, The Netherlands - Having run the polite-but-grim gantlet of Dutch government security to gain access to Geert Wilders, I finally understood what the 24-hour security requirements of the man’s continued existence really mean: To make the survival of Western-style liberty in the Netherlands his political cause, this Dutch parliamentarian has to live under high-tech lock and key. This stunning paradox, with no end in sight, illustrates how far political freedom in the West has already eroded. Think of it: For writing about the repressive ideology of Islam, for arguing against the inequities of Sharia (Islamic law), for making a video ("Fitna") to warn about Islamic jihad, Wilders lives in his own non-Islamic country under a specifically Islamic death threat. If it is politically incorrect to notice this, then it is also indisputably true. True, too, is that, sans state security, this death threat could conceivably be carried out anytime, anywhere-from the picturesque streets outside the Dutch parliament, to the house Wilders hasn’t slept in since 2004. That, of course, was when, on an Amsterdam street, a Muslim assassin plunged a knife into Theo van Gogh’s corpse, thus attaching the Islamic manifesto threatening both Wilders and his then-parliamentary colleague, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, with death. Read more ...Source: Columbia TribuneH/T: Shariah Finance Watch
 The arrest of a controversial Dutch cartoonist has set off a wave of protests. The case is raising questions for a changing Europe about free speech, religion and art.By ANDREW HIGGINS On a sunny May morning, six plainclothes police officers, two uniformed policemen and a trio of functionaries from the state prosecutor's office closed in on a small apartment in Amsterdam. Their quarry: a skinny Dutch cartoonist with a rude sense of humor. Informed that he was suspected of sketching offensive drawings of Muslims and other minorities, the Dutchman surrendered without a struggle. "I never expected the Spanish Inquisition," recalls the cartoonist, who goes by the nom de plume Gregorius Nekschot, quoting the British comedy team Monty Python. A fan of ribald gags, he's a caustic foe of religion, particularly Islam. The Quran, crucifixion, sexual organs and goats are among his favorite motifs. Mr. Nekschot, whose cartoons had appeared mainly on his own Web site, spent the night in a jail cell. Police grabbed his computer, a hard drive and sketch pads. He's been summoned for further questioning later this month by prosecutors. He hasn't been charged with a crime, but the prosecutor's office says he's been under investigation for three years on suspicion that he violated a Dutch law that forbids discrimination on the basis of race, religion or sexual orientation. Read more ... Source: The Wall Street Journal H/T: Dhimmi Watch
THE HAGUE (AFP) The Netherlands will ban Iranian students from studying nuclear technology, a source of tension between Iran and world powers, at its universities, the government said Friday. "It is forbidden... to grant Iranian nationals access to special training or teaching that could contribute to nuclear proliferation activities in Iran and the development of systems for transmitting nuclear arms," the foreign ministry said in a statement. Some powers including the United States suspect Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at producing energy to serve a growing population. Friday's measure adds to a Dutch decree adopting international sanctions against Iran that were put in place last year. It bans Iranians notably from the nuclear reactor in Borssele in the southeastern Netherlands, and from a test reactor at the Delft University of Technology. Read more ...Source: AFP
Meldpunt Discriminatie Internet (MDI) reports that Dutch blogger Ertan was sentenced yet again by the Amsterdam court to 100 hours of community service for inciting to hate and violence against homosexuals. He was also sentenced for insulting and threatening then Minister of Foreigner Affairs Verdonk.
In 2004 and 2005 MDI lodged complaints against Ertan after receving more than 130 reports about his sites. In June 2006 he was sentenced to 100 hours of community service. Ertan appealed, but his appeal was rejected.
Ertan had called on his blog to stone Minister Verdonk. Moreover he wrote that "As soon as the Muslim law is in force in the Netherlands, I will be the first who will push off every protesting homosexual with his head down from the Westertoren." Ertan also wrote he wanted to blow up the monument for homosexuals and called upon his reader to made a "explosive party" of the Canal Parade.
According to the court, Ertan is inciting people against each other with his texts and such expressions conflict with the standards and values of Dutch society. Source: NRC (Dutch) H/T: Islam in Europe
Artist Ellen Vroegh almost fell from her chair when she was called up yesterday by Huizen municipality. Because several Muslim men had complained about her abstract paintings of half-naked women, the pieces had been removed from the municipality building where they had been displayed. Vroegh: I feel severely discriminated! this passes all bounds. Must Dutch men now integrate in their own country? After the Nekschot affair, now you get this. Soon art will land up at the stage." Source: Islam in Europe
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By Robert Spencer
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