‘The unrivaled leader of those Europeans who wish to retain their historic identity’ – Pipes hails Wilders

Posted on January 19, 2010 by Bob Pitt

Pipes and Wilders “Who is the most important European alive today? I nominate the Dutch politician Geert Wilders. I do so because he is best placed to deal with the Islamic challenge facing the continent. He has the potential to emerge as a world-historical figure.

“That Islamic challenge consists of two components: on the one hand, an indigenous population’s withering Christian faith, inadequate birthrate, and cultural diffidence, and on the other an influx of devout, prolific, and culturally assertive Muslim immigrants. This fast-moving situation raises profound questions about Europe: Will it retain its historic civilization or become a majority-Muslim continent living under Islamic law (the Shari’a)?

“Wilders, 46, founder and head of the Party for Freedom (PVV), is the unrivaled leader of those Europeans who wish to retain their historic identity.”

Daniel Pipes at NRO, 19 January 2010

Wilders to be tried for hate speech

Posted on January 15, 2010 by Bob Pitt

Geert Wilders will be tried for hate speech and inciting discrimination in a Dutch court next Wednesday. A ruling on Tuesday took away the last obstacle standing in the way of the case against anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, when the court dismissed his objections against prosecution.

NRC International, 14 January 2010

Update: See also “Geert Wilders hate speech charges widened”, Middle East Online, 15 January 2010

Muslims don’t actually want to live in ghettos, shock survey finds

Posted on December 16, 2009 by Bob Pitt

Muslims in Europe Most of Europe’s Muslims want to live in mixed communities, not segregated neighbourhoods, a new report says.

The work by the Open Society Institute (OSI), an independent think-tank, looked at the social integration of Muslims in 11 West European cities. It calls for improved efforts to tackle discrimination.

Europe’s Muslim population is expected to double by 2025 and could reach 40 million. But data on them is very limited, OSI says.

The report says religious discrimination remains a critical barrier to their participation in European society, and the situation has worsened in recent years. The OSI says its aim is to promote tolerance and fairness.

Nazia Hussein, who supervised the work, says many Muslims are still seen as outsiders.

“The majority of Muslims that we’ve spoken to across 11 cities feel very strongly attached to their neighbourhood and city, they feel quite strongly attached to their country,” she told the BBC. “But at the same time they don’t believe that their fellow countrymen or the wider society sees them as either German or French or English.”

The report offers a series of snapshots from: the Netherlands (Amsterdam and Rotterdam), Belgium (Antwerp), Germany (Berlin and Hamburg), Denmark (Copenhagen), the UK (Leicester and London), France (Marseille and Paris) and Sweden (Stockholm).

BBC News, 15 December 2009

Swiss ban on minarets was a vote for tolerance and inclusion

Posted on December 5, 2009 by Bob Pitt

Yes, really. At least, that’s what Ayaan Hirsi Ali claims.

Lord Pearson plays the Islam card to win leadership of UKIP

Posted on November 28, 2009 by Bob Pitt

Pearson with Pamela Geller A millionaire peer was elected leader of the UK Independence Party yesterday after putting “the growing threat of Islamism” and curbing immigration at the heart of his campaign. Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who defected from the Conservatives two years ago, comfortably beat four rivals to assume command of the anti-European Union party.

Lord Pearson, one of two Ukip peers, has protested that the “political class” is complacent about Islamism and claimed that some of “our people” were “strangers in our own land”. The 67-year-old former insurance broker invited the right-wing Dutch politician Geert Wilders in February to screen a controversial film about radical Islam. He has called for a zero net increase in immigration, arguing that the issue was the main concern for many voters.

Independent, 28 November 2009

Pearson has an admirer in Damian Thompson, who writes: “You may think that Ukip’s new focus on the Islamification of parts of Britain is a dangerous strategy. And so it would be, if the party was in other hands. But Lord Pearson is still essentially a libertarian Tory: he would never stoop to sending out dog whistles to wavering BNP racists. His campaign against uncontrolled immigration and Sharia will be rooted in a defence of liberal democracy of the sort that other parties are too gutless to make.”

The photo is of Pearson with another admirer, mad US Islamophobe Pamela Geller, who has hailed his election as “great news“.

Islamophobes are front-runners in UKIP leadership contest

Posted on November 27, 2009 by Bob Pitt

Lord Pearson and Wilders The UK Independence Party is set to head in a fresh direction, fighting radical Islam, with the election today of a replacement for Nigel Farage as its national leader. The two favourites to take over from Mr Farage are committed to adding the battle against Islamic fundamentalism to the party’s main goal of withdrawing Britain from the European Union.

Mr Farage resisted strong grassroots pressure during his three-year leadership to broaden UKIP’s focus to include actively campaigning against Islamism and immigration. But both Lord Pearson of Rannoch and the London MEP Gerard Batten – the two front-runners in a field of five candidates – say that they are determined to target Islamic fundamentalism.

Lord Pearson invited the anti-Islam Dutch politician Geert Wilders to the House of Lords in February only for Jacqui Smith, then the Home Secretary, to issue a banning order so that Mr Wilders was turned away at Heathrow. The Dutchman travelled to Britain in October after overturning the ban.

Lord Pearson’s own outspoken views about Islam were recorded in Washington DC last month. Asked how much time Britain had before losing control of its cultural identity he said: “What is going to decide the answer to that is the birthrate. The fact that Muslims are breeding ten times faster than us. I do not know at what point they reach such a number that we are no longer able to resist the rest of their demands … but if we do not do something now within the next year or two we have in effect lost.”

Mr Batten, 55, has also invited Mr Wilders to speaking engagements and has called the Dutch politician “a brave man trying to defend western civilisation”. This year, writing in the magazine Freedom Today, Mr Batten addressed the notion of the confrontation of Islamism and the West. “It is a clash between civilisation and barbarism. It is a clash between everything that has made the modern world what it is and an ideology that wants to enslave us to a belief system that belongs in seventh-century Arabia and which was primitive and backward even then.”

Times, 27 November 2009

Philadelphia university allows Wilders to preach hate

Posted on October 21, 2009 by Bob Pitt

Amid tight security and a large turnout of protesters, Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders told an assembly of Temple University students that Europe and America must fight an ongoing “stealth jihad” that threatens democracy and free speech.

“Where Islam sets roots, freedom dies,” Geert Wilders told the students during his 30-minute address organized by a new student group called Temple University Purpose and funded by the David Horowitz Freedom Center.

If the spread of Islam continues unabated in the Western world, “you might at the end of the day lose your Constitution,” he told the assembly. “Wake up, defend your freedom.” He also touched on common themes in his speeches, including calling for an end to Muslim immigration and referring to the Muslim holy book, the Quran, as “an evil book” that promotes violence and intolerance.

A question-and-answer session was cut short after the tone of the event began to turn nasty, when some in the crowd of several hundred students began shouting jeers. Wilders’ security detail quickly ushered him from the room.

Before his remarks at Temple, a public university serving about 34,000 students, Wilders showed his 15-minute anti-Islam film, “Fitna,” which juxtaposes passages from the suras, or chapters, of the Quran with images of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, beheadings, shootings and speeches from clerics advocating violence against non-Muslims.

Temple officials issued a statement saying the university “is a community of scholars in which freedom of inquiry and freedom of expression are valued. We respect the right of our student organizations to invite people who express a wide variety of views and ideas.”

Fox News, 21 October 2009

See also the Philadelphia Daily News which reports:

Before the speech, held in Anderson Hall, more than 50 protesters had denounced the appearance of Wilders at the school. Members of All Sides, an organization that seeks to promote peace between Israel and Palestinians, held pink pom-poms and shouted, “Hey Hey, HO, HO, this racist bull—-‘s got to go.” Standing next to them with signs decrying Wilders’ views were members of the Student Senate, Democratic Socialists and the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance.

“Wilders speaks out about free speech while at the same time banning the Quran,” said Megan Chialastri, vice president of All Sides. “Banned books are not free speech and there is no way around that,” Chialastri said. “This is hate speech at its core,” said Monira Gamal-Eldin, president of the Muslim Students Association.

And over at Jihad Watch Robert Spencer reports the protest under the headline “Heavily indoctrinated student thugs shout down Wilders at Temple University”.

Wilders not welcome in Philadelphia

Posted on October 18, 2009 by Bob Pitt

The David Horowitz Freedom Center (which would probably outpoint the Centre for Social Cohesion in a competition for the most inappropriate name) has invited the Dutch far-right racist Geert Wilders to speak at Philadelphia’s Temple University on 20 October as part of its Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week and its Stop the Campus War Against Israel and the Jews campaign.

Alas for Horowitz and his supporters, it appears that following a letter from the Muslim Students Association the Temple administration will probably withdraw permission to hold the event. (Or, as the inimitable Pamela Geller puts it: “In a stunning act of cowardice and dhimmitude, Temple University may be caving to the demands of the student jihad.”)

LoonWatch comments that, contrary to Horowitz’s claims, “Geert Wilders was not planning to travel to Philadelphia from the Netherlands solely for the purpose of informing Americans about terrorism…. Based on Wilders’ record, it is clear that the purpose behind the speech was to convince Americans that Islam as a religion is the root cause of terror and that the United States must seriously consider curtailing the civil liberties of its Muslim population if it wishes to survive as a free nation.”

Unfortunately, it appears that another speaking engagement for Wilders, at Columbia University on 21 October, is still going ahead. As LoonWatch states: “Temple University was right to rescind their offer to have Wilders speak and Columbia should follow suit. Slander has no place in a free and just society; especially slander that utilizes hate speech to promote discrimination.”

Wilders heads for UK

Posted on October 16, 2009 by Bob Pitt

Controversial right-wing Dutch MP Geert Wilders is due to arrive in the UK later after the home secretary said he would not try to block his entry. Mr Wilders was turned away from the UK in February on the grounds that his allegedly anti-Islamic views posed a threat to public security. But the Freedom Party leader is now due to visit London on Friday after that ban was overturned by a tribunal. The Home Office says it is considering whether to challenge the decision.

A spokesman for Home Secretary Alan Johnson said on Thursday: “Any European visitor’s right to enter the UK will be considered on its merits by an immigration officer. On this occasion the home secretary is not minded to recommend that Wilders is denied admission to the UK. Clearly Mr Wilders’ statements and behaviour during a visit will inevitably impact on any future decisions to admit him.”

BBC News, 16 October 2009

Geert Wilders wins appeal against ban on travelling to UK

Posted on October 13, 2009 by Bob Pitt

Geert Wilders Extremist2

The far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders intends to travel to London next week after an immigration tribunal ruling overturned a ban on visiting Britain.

The Home Office said it was disappointed after the tribunal rejected its claim that his presence could “inflame community tensions and lead to inter-faith violence”.

The Freedom party leader immediately announced his intention to meet Ukip’s Lord Pearson of Rannoch to discuss a showing of his anti-Islamic film Fitna later this month in the House of Lords.

Judge CMG Ockelton, who chaired the tribunal, said that Wilders’s opinions were expressed strongly and in a way that was bound to cause offence but that the right of freedom of expression was important in a democratic society.

“Substantial evidence of actual harm would be needed before it would be proper for a government to prevent the expression and discussion of matters that might form the opinions of legislators, policy makers and voters,” he said.

The ruling said there had been no evidence of public order problems or damage to community relations as a result of a previous visit by Wilders to Britain. “It was more important to allow free speech than to take restrictive action speculatively,” said Ockelton.

The judgment goes further, saying that even if there were evidence that Wilders posed a threat to public order it would still not have been necessary to ban him because the police would have been able to ensure no disorder took place and remove him if there was trouble.

Guardian, 13 October 2009

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