Muslim
congressmen try to boot Islam critic Geert Wilders, By Art Moore, 4/30/15
Reps. Andre Carson, D-Ind., Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., and Keith
Ellison, D-Minn., in Washington, D.C., protesting Geert Wilders visit to the
U.S. Crashed D.C. news conference after urging John Kerry to deny visa.
As one of the world’s most prominent critics of Islam, Dutch
lawmaker Geert Wilders doesn’t go anywhere without his security detail of as
many as six plainclothes police officers, and he rarely crosses international
borders without causing political uproar, having already been banned in Britain
at one time.
So it was of little surprise that three U.S. congressmen
urged Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh
Johnson to deny him a visa ahead of his planned visit to the U.S. this week,
due to his alleged ongoing “participation in inciting anti-Muslim aggression
and violence.”
Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., and André Carson, D-Ind., who
both are Muslim, along with Rep. Joe Crowley, D-N.Y., wrote a letter April 23
citing “the International Religious Freedom Act which allows the Department of
State to deny entry to a foreign leader who is responsible for severe
violations of religious freedom.”
Nevertheless, Wilders – who insists he doesn’t hate Muslims
but believes Western civilization is threatened by adherents of the Islamic
supremacy taught in the Quran – showed up on Capitol Hill Wednesday and spoke
at two events at the invitation of Reps. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, and Steve
King, R-Iowa
King’s communications director, Sarah Stevens, told WND the
congressman invited Gilders a month or so ago to speak at the weekly
Conservative Opportunity Society breakfast he chairs. Gilders spoke Wednesday
on his latest book, “Marked for Death: Islam’s War Against the West and Me,”
and also attended an evening reception with Congress members and staff along
with representatives of foreign policy groups on Capitol Hill.
Ellison, Carson and Crowley showed up Thursday at a news
conference King and Gohmert held for Wilders in front of the U.S. Capitol and
voiced their opposition to the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf in a video
interview.
“Personally, I find it disturbing, but mostly sad, because,
you know, the people of the Netherlands are a good people, and this is
absolutely true, with a great history of tolerance, great history of giving art
to the world and great gifts,” Ellison said.
“And it’s unfortunate,” the Minnesota congressman continued,
“that someone such as this would come over here and sort of represent himself
as a member of that society.”
Wilders, for his part, would contend that Ellison actually
is drawing attention to the central issue: It’s the intolerance of Muslim
immigrants and their refusal to assimilate, Wilders argues, that threatens the
historic Judeo-Christian Dutch culture that forms the basis of a tolerant,
pluralistic society capable of “giving art to the world and great gifts.”
As for whether or not Wilders represents his country, in
2009 he remarked: “Half of Holland loves me and half of Holland hates me. There
is no in-between.”
King was unable to speak to WND due to schedule constraints,
but he was interviewed by the De Telegraaf reporter in front of the
Capitol Thursday, who asked him for his view of Wilders.
“I think he’s solid and courageous. I introduced him
yesterday as a man who will stand up and speak the truth – even if he’s under
death threats, speak the truth,” King said in the video interview. “He’s done
that consistently for a decade.”
Comparing cultures
Summarizing their complaint, the three protesting
congressmen told Kerry and Johnson that Wilders’ “policy agenda is centered on
the principle that Christian culture is superior to other cultures.”
“He justifies his
desire to ban the Quran and Islam from the Netherlands with depraved comments
like, ‘Islam is not a religion, it’s an ideology, the ideology of a retarded
culture.’ We should not be importing hate speech,” they write.
Wilders’ defenders point out that the Dutch word he used to
describe Islamic culture can be translated as “backward” rather than
“retarded,” insisting that while Wilders doesn’t mince words, he is no hater of
people.
“I don’t hate Muslims, I hate Islam,” explains Wilders, the
leader of the Party for Freedom, the fourth-largest party in the Dutch
parliament.
That sentiment apparently is of little consolation to many
of the more than 1 billion people who identify as Muslim, but Wilders contends
the orthodox teaching of Islam derived from Muhammad is an existential threat
to Western civilization.
While he puts the percentage of Islamic extremists at about
5 to 15 percent of Muslims, he contends “moderate Islam” doesn’t exist and
notes the Quran itself states that Muslims who accept the Islam’s holy book in
part are “apostates.”
As evidence of the failure to
assimilate, in
a speech to parliament last year he cited a study showing that nearly three-quarters of ethnic Turks and
Moroccans in the Netherlands regard those who leave the European nation to join
jihadists in Syria as “heroes.” Wilders pointed out that the same percentage of
Dutch Muslims condoned the 9/11 attacks.
Wilders has been under constant security protection since
November 2004, when two North African Muslims were accused of planning to
murder him and another outspoken critic of Islam in the parliament, Ayaan Hirsi
Ali. The attack at the Hague came shortly after the murder of Dutch filmmaker
Theo van Gogh by a Moroccan national.
Wilders was banned from the U.K. as
an “undesirable person” under Prime Minister Gordon Brown in February 2009, two
days before he was scheduled to show his short film
“Fitna” at the invitation of two members of
the House of Lords. Wilders appealed the ban to Britain’s Asylum and
Immigration Tribunal, which overturned it in October 2009.
Wilders writings and film “Fitna” warning of the “Islamization”
of the Netherlands and Europe prompted Turkish, Moroccan and Antillean
organizations in the country to bring charges against him of criminally
insulting religious and ethnic groups and inciting hatred and discrimination.
In June 2011, he was acquitted of all charges. Judge Marcel
van Oosten called Wilders’ statements about Islam “gross and denigrating” but
ruled they didn’t constitute hatred against Muslims and, therefore, were
“acceptable within the context of public debate.”
Limiting free speech
In their letter, Ellison, Carson and Crowley assert Wilders’
right to speak freely in the U.S. under the First Amendment is limited because
he allegedly incites violence and “prejudicial action” against protected
groups.
They write: In the U.S., freedom of speech is a bedrock
principle that distinguishes free societies from ones living under oppressive
regimes. Freedom of speech, however, is not absolute. It is limited by the
legal and moral understanding that speech that causes the incitement of violence
or prejudicial action against protected groups is wrong. As Mr. Wilders
continues his pursuit of political power, granting him entry will embolden him
to engage in further incitement of violence and discrimination against Muslims.
Legal analyst Eugene Volokh noted the incitement exception
to free speech, according to Supreme Court precedent, is “limited to speech
intended to and likely to produce imminent lawless conduct — conduct in the
coming hours or maybe few days.”
Wilders’ statements, Volokh
wrote in a Washington Post blogpost,
appear to be constitutionally protected, he said, because they “don’t urge any
imminent conduct (or even any criminal conduct, as opposed to long-term changes
in the law). Such statements’ are “incitement” in the Congressmen’s opinion
only because the Congressmen apparently view constitutionally unprotected
“incitement” (or, as they term it earlier, “hate speech”) much more broadly.”
http://www.wnd.com/2015/04/muslim-congressmen-try-to-boot-islam-critic-geert-wilders/
