Open Season on Europeans Who Insult Islam

In an op-ed for tomorrow’s Wall Street Journal, Geert Wilders talks about the ongoing suppression of free speech in Europe:

European Free Speech Under Attack

Defending the right to say that Islam is primarily a totalitarian ideology aiming for world domination.

By Geert Wilders

“The lights are going out all over Europe,” British Foreign Secretary Edward Grey famously remarked on the eve of World War I. I am reminded of those words whenever I read about Europeans being dragged into court for so-called hate-speech crimes.

Recently, Danish journalist Lars Hedegaard, president of the International Free Press Society, had to stand trial in Copenhagen because he had criticized Islam. Mr. Hedegaard was acquitted, but only on the technicality that he had not known that his words, expressed in a private conversation, were being taped. Last week in Vienna, Elisabeth Sabaditsch-Wolff, an Austrian human-rights activist, was fined €480 for calling the Islamic prophet Muhammad a pedophile because he had consummated his marriage to a nine-year old girl. Meanwhile, my own trial in Amsterdam is dragging on, consuming valuable time that I would rather spend in parliament representing my million-and-a-half voters.

How can all this be possible in supposedly liberal Europe? The Dutch penal code states that anyone who either “publicly, verbally or in writing or image, deliberately expresses himself in any way that incites hatred against a group or people” or “in any way that insults a group of people because of their race, their religion or belief, their hetero- or homosexual inclination or their physical, psychological or mental handicap, will be punished.”

Early in 2008, a number of leftist and Islamic organizations took me to court, claiming that by expressing my views on Islam I had deliberately “insulted” and “incited hatred” against Muslims. I argued then, as I will again in my forthcoming book, that Islam is primarily a totalitarian ideology aiming for world domination.

Last October, my former colleague in the Dutch parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, wrote in these pages of the way in which Islamic organizations abuse our freedoms in order to limit them. “There are,” she wrote, “the efforts of countries in the Organization of the Islamic Conference to silence the European debate about Islam,” citing their strategy “to pressure international organizations and the European Union to adopt resolutions to punish anyone who engages in ‘hate speech’ against religion. The bill used to prosecute Mr. Wilders is the national version of what OIC diplomats peddle at the U.N. and EU.”

Indeed, in 2008 the EU approved its so-called “Council Framework Decision on combating Racism and Xenophobia,” and the EU’s 27 nations have since had to incorporate it into their national legislation. The decision orders that “racist or xenophobic behavior must constitute an offence in all Member States and be punishable by effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties.” It defines “racism and xenophobia” so broadly that every statement that an individual might perceive as insulting to a group to which he belongs becomes punishable by law.

The perverse result is that in Europe it is now all but impossible to have a debate about the nature of Islam, or about the effects of immigration of Islam’s adherents. Take my own case, for example. My point is that Islam is not so much a religion as it is a totalitarian political ideology disguised as a religion. To avoid misunderstandings, I always emphasize that I am talking about Islam, not about Muslims. I make a clear distinction between the people and the ideology, between Muslims and Islam, recognizing that there are many moderate Muslims. But the political ideology of Islam is not moderate and has global ambitions; the Koran orders Muslims to establish the realm of Allah in this world, if necessary by force.

Stating my views on Islam has brought me to court on charges of "group insult" and incitement to racial hatred. I am being tried for voicing opinions that I—and my constituents—consider to be the truth. I am being tried for challenging the views that the ruling establishment wants to impose on us as the truth.

The rest of Mr. Wilders’ article is available at The Wall Street Journal.