Unless the trial judges go against the request of the prosecutors, it looks like Geert Wilders’ ordeal is over.
Here’s the story from Elsevier, as translated by our Flemish correspondent VH:
Wilders does not incite hatred and discrimination
[Friday, October 15, 2010] The Public Prosecutor (OM) has asked the court in Amsterdam to acquit Geert Wilders of inciting to hatred AND religious discrimination.
The prosecution thus has on all three points demanded acquittal for Wilders. Although Wilders had made some statements that might incite to discrimination, the OM does not find these punishable, because Wilders made these statements in the context of the political debate.
The OM does not comply with the rulings for which the Freedom Party leader is on trial, all the criteria for incitement to hatred.
1 comment:
From some of the other comments I've seen over the last few days, it nevertheless appears that the prosecution is still hoping to use this case to establish a defensible legal doctrine that will provide a framework for future prosecutions under the same laws.
In other words, the prosecutors may be forced to acknowledge that the specific indictments against Wilders were irreparably botched from the start, but they want still want to salvage the laws under which he was indicted, or at least as much as they can.
The bottom line, though, is that this looks like it will be two very big black eyes for the evil forces of political correctness and thought-control!!!
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