Dutch MP denied entry to the UK - his presence on British soil might offend Islam

[Winner]

This... is... unbelievable

British government bans an EU citizen, an elected member of democratic parliament of another EU country, from entering the United Kingdom. The reason is - he criticizes Islam.

Yes. That's obviously so dangerous in Britain now, that it constitutes a reason to throw away the whole point of free speech and free flow of ideas, not to mention the free travel between EU states, and cave to an open threat by one of British parliamentarians.

Patrick Condell's commentary (he said that 1000x better than I ever could)


Daily Telegraph article:

Dutch anti-Muslim politician turned away from Britain at Heathrow

A controversial anti-Muslim Dutch politician was deported from Britain last night after he tried to defy a Home Office entry ban.

Geert Wilders was detained by plain clothes border guards on arrival at London's Heathrow airport on Thursday afternoon.

He was hustled past passport control to a secure immigration holding area before his deportation a few hours later.

"Is this how Great Britain treats a democrat?" said Mr Wilders, as he was escorted away.

The elected Dutch MP was invited to the House of Lords to show his 17-minute film, Fitna, which criticises the Koran as a "fascist book" and compares Islam to Nazism.

On Tuesday, The Home Office refused him entry on the grounds he "would threaten community security and therefore public security".

Whilst travelling into London on a British Midland flight from Amsterdam's Schipol airport, Mr Wilder accused the Government of "weakness and cowardice".

"They're the biggest bunch of cowards in Europe," he said.

"Be brave. Be a defender of free speech. If you don't you are weak. You are cowards. "Your country has already taken a big step in the direction of Islamicisation."

Mr Wilders, 45, mocked the ban saying that he visited London in December for talks over the film showing without any interference.

"I am an elected political representative, I am a democrat," he said.

"I use freedom of speech. I am using the democratic means I have."

Asked if he was nervous as he was detained, with border officers holding each of his arms, Mr Wilders replied: "I am not nervous but I am anxious to find out what will happen to me."

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said Holland would press for a reversal of the travel ban.

Gerard Batten, the UKIP MEP for London, was waiting to greet Mr Wilders at Heathrow when news came through that he had been taken away.

"I invited him to the European Parliament in Strasburg in December, we wasn't allowed to show the film but he was allowed to speak and put across his point of view.

"This country is unbelievable, we will let in people like al Qaradawi (the Hamas-supporting Muslim Brotherhood leader).

"We can't do anything about murderers, rapists and paedophiles coming from the EU but they will stop a democratically elected politician from the EU talking about the sources of terrorism."

British travellers were angered after being caught up in a media scrum and tight security surrounding the arrest of Mr Wilders.

Nicola Clarke, 28, an NHS receptionist returning to Bristol after a holiday in Amsterdam described the ban as a waste of time and resources.

"They should get on with running the country and sorting out what needs to be fixed. There is already enough wrong with the country without messing with someone who no one had heard of before today," she said.

Mr Wilders has defended himself against accusations of "double standards" over his own demand for freedom of speech alongside his calls for the Koran to be banned.

"I want to ban the Koran," he admitted.

"I the Netherlands we have banned Mein Kampf. I see a comparison between the two books. Not only are both books of totalitarian ideology but they both also incite violence."

A spokesman for the Muslim Council of Britain said: "Geert Wilders has been an open and relentless preacher of hate - there is little difference between his views and those of the far right."

Mohammed Shafiq, the chief executive of the Muslim youth organisation the Ramadhan Foundation, supported the government's ban.

"His hatred of Islam is based on fiction and his presence in the UK may lead to community tensions," he said.

"Mr Wilders and his fascist views are not welcomed to our country where we pride ourselves as a multi-faith society."

A Home Office statement said: "The Government opposes extremism in all its forms. It will stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country, and that was the driving force behind tighter rules on exclusions for unacceptable behaviour that the Home Secretary announced in October last year."

DW article (I don't even want to know how al-BeeBeeC informed about it)

Dutch Anti-Islam Politician Refused Entry into UK

Controversial Dutch politician Geert Wilders said on Thursday he was barred from entering Britain after the government there said his virulent anti-Islamic views posed a threat to public order and harmony.

Wilders, leader of the liberal-rightist Freedom Party PVV, had been forewarned by immigration officials that he would not be allowed to enter the UK prior to touching down on a flight from Amsterdam.

"I am in a detention center at Heathrow ... I will not be allowed to enter the country," Wilders told the Reuters news agency from the airport. "They will send me back within a few hours."

"It is a very sad day, not only for me, but for freedom of speech," he said.

British authorities decided to refuse Wilders entry after a Dutch court ruled on Jan. 21 that he should be prosecuted for alleged discrimination and incitement of violence and hatred.

Wilders had been invited by Malcolm Pearson, a member of the House of Lords, to show his controversial film Fitna, a documentary which warns of the spread of radical Islam. Wilders refers to the Koran as a "fascist book."

British-Dutch tension

The case has sparked a diplomatic rift between Britain and the Netherlands, with the Dutch government protesting the decision to refuse entry to a democratically elected politician.

"It is highly regrettable that a Dutch MP should be denied entry to another EU country," Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen said in a statement on the Dutch Embassy's British Web site.

Wilders is currently being prosecuted in the Netherlands for anti-Islam remarks. His short film, which was shown over the Internet last March, was condemned by the Dutch government.

The film's opening scenes juxtapose a copy of the Koran with images of major terrorist attacks, including September 11 in the US and the Madrid and London bombings in 2004 and 2005.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband told Britain's BBC that "a hate-filled film designed to stir up religious and racial hatred in this country is contrary to our laws."

Commission: entry refusal legal

Officials from the European Commission, the EU's executive, said that member states have the right to refuse entry to EU citizens on the grounds of public order, security or health.

However, they have to explain to the would-be traveller the reasons for the refusal and grant them the right to appeal, commission justice spokesman Michele Cercone said.

Commission officials refused to comment directly on the Wilders case, saying that it was up to member states to make their own risk assessments.

The travel ban received solid backing from Muslim groups in Britain, who described Wilders as an "open and relentless preacher of hate."

That's right, Mr. Miliband, thanks for making it absolutely clear that any public criticism of Islam is now a crime in this wonderful land of freedom called the UK. Just place some idiotic sticker on it ("hate speech") and burn the heretic

 

[sysyphus]

Meh, so his BNP friends can visit him in Holland instead.

 

[Kerozine]

What exactly seems to be the problem?

 

[Munch]

He may be a far-right nutjob, but he should have freedom of speech regardless of how unpalatable his views are.

Sam Harris wrote an excellent commentary on this absurd 'bending over' to protect the feelings of the faithful rather than protecting our freedom of speech: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/losing-our-spines-to-save_b_100132.html

Basically Wilders is claiming that the Koran incites people to violence. He is not threatening violence against anyone, nor is he saying anything like 'deport all Muslims' (as far as I am aware); his point appears to be that if someone takes the Koran literally they can use it to justify horrific acts of violence. This is conveyed in his film by juxtaposing images of Muslims giving the Roman/Nazi salute, and of the aftermath of terrorist acts committed by some who claim to be Muslim (e.g. train bombings) with verses from the Koran such as "prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering". I'm sure there are more serious-sounding quotes than that one but that's the only one that was shown on the More4 report.

 

[Winner]

What exactly seems to be the problem?

Is that supposed to be a question? Banning democratically elected members of parliament from entering another EU country is OK, according to you? Banning them on the basis that they are critical of a religion is now perfectly OK?

What's next? Perhaps they should have arrested him, held him in the Tower and beheaded him, that's the traditional British way of dealing with dissidents right? Good to see how deep into the islamofascist mud has Britain plunged in the last decade.

Muslims tell them that there "could be" troubles if someone they don't like speaks out in Britain, so the British government bans him from entering the country. Great day for British democracy, really.

 

[Samson]

He is guilty (or perhaps just charged with) of inciting racial hatred. You could not without hipocracy keep out the islamic preachers of hate while letting this bloke in.

The main problem is that this is giving him the publicity he craves.

[EDIT]

Is that supposed to be a question? Banning democratically elected members of parliament from entering another EU country is OK, according to you?

It does not worry us much. You know a democratically elected member of OUR parliment was not allowed to speak in the media for many years, and was never allowed to take his seat because he would not swear loyalty to the queen. I do not see what being elected somewhere else in the EU has any effect on someones relationship with UK law.

 

[El_Machinae]

He faces trial in his own country. Isn't that a normal reason to deny entry between countries?

 

[Winner]

He may be a far-right nutjob, but he should have freedom of speech regardless of how unpalatable his views are.

Sam Harris wrote an excellent commentary on this absurd 'bending over' to protect the feelings of the faithful rather than protecting our freedom of speech: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-harris/losing-our-spines-to-save_b_100132.html

Basically Wilders is claiming that the Koran incites people to violence. He is not threatening violence against anyone, nor is he saying anything like 'deport all Muslims' (as far as I am aware); his point appears to be that if someone takes the Koran literally they can use it to justify horrific acts of violence. This is conveyed in his film by juxtaposing images of Muslims giving the Roman/Nazi salute, and of the aftermath of terrorist acts committed by some who claim to be Muslim (e.g. train bombings) with verses from the Koran such as "prepare for them whatever force and cavalry ye are able of gathering". I'm sure there are more serious-sounding quotes than that one but that's the only one that was shown on the More4 report.

So, why exactly do the media brand him as a far-right nutjob? He's simply a right-wing conservative so far as most of his ideas go. But once he touches Islam, he's suddenly a Nazi - at least according to the mainstream media.

Quo vadis, Western Europe...

 

[Munch]

So, why exactly do the media brand him as a far-right nutjob? He's simply a right-wing conservative so far as most of his ideas go. But once he touches Islam, he's suddenly a Nazi - at least according to the mainstream media.

Quo vadis, Western Europe...

That's what I meant, coupled with his being a member of a far-right political party.

Besides, I said he 'may be' a nutjob: it's a subjective assessment depending on your own politics.

Anyway, I agree with Sam Harris on this story, for example:

Wilders, like Westergaard and the other Danish cartoonists, has been widely vilified for "seeking to inflame" the Muslim community. Even if this had been his intention, this criticism represents an almost supernatural coincidence of moral blindness and political imprudence. The point is not (and will never be) that some free person spoke, or wrote, or illustrated in such a manner as to inflame the Muslim community. The point is that only the Muslim community is combustible in this way. The controversy over Fitna, like all such controversies, renders one fact about our world especially salient: Muslims appear to be far more concerned about perceived slights to their religion than about the atrocities committed daily in its name. Our accommodation of this psychopathic skewing of priorities has, more and more, taken the form of craven and blinkered acquiescence.

 

[sysyphus]

He faces trial in his own country. Isn't that a normal reason to deny entry between countries?

Indeed it is. In fact, all countries reserve the right to deny entry to anybody for whatever reason they wish, and they do it all the time for reasons even more petty than this. I was once denied entry to the US and was not given a reason (and I have no criminal record).

As for Sam Harris, that nutjob is as radical as those he decries.

 

[El_Machinae]

Well, on the whole, I'd mock a country that refused entry to someone because they're afraid Muslims would react poorly. But blocking entry to someone awaiting trial is obviously something else.

 

[Kerozine]

Is that supposed to be a question? Banning democratically elected members of parliament from entering another EU country is OK, according to you? Banning them on the basis that they are critical of a religion is now perfectly OK?

What's next? Perhaps they should have arrested him, held him in the Tower and beheaded him, that's the traditional British way of dealing with dissidents right? Good to see how deep into the islamofascist mud has Britain plunged in the last decade.

Muslims tell them that there "could be" troubles if someone they don't like speaks out in Britain, so the British government bans him from entering the country. Great day for British democracy, really.

It's perfectly fine IMHO, since the UK isn't part of the Schengen Agreement and Wilders isn't part of any [official] diplomatic mission.

 

[Oruc]

Meh, thats the dutch for you

 

[Winner]

He faces trial in his own country. Isn't that a normal reason to deny entry between countries?

Facing a clearly politically motivated trial is no reason to deny someone access to another country. Should we ban Tibetan or Cuban dissidents from entering the EU, because China/Cuba might react angrily?

He is guilty (or perhaps just charged with) of inciting racial hatred. You could not without hipocracy keep out the islamic preachers of hate while letting this bloke in.

How is he inciting hatred? By voicing his opinion, that Koran is in fact inciting hatred against all unbelievers (based on many quotes from it)? Oh, the irony

You can slam religion all day long in the EU, with one exception - Islam. Islam is a big no-no. Muslims might get so offended that they'd feel compelled to act violently, and that's not something we'd like, right? So let's rather get rid of the offensive ideas - freedom of speech and the sort - and of annoying people, that will make our Muslim friends happy.

The main problem is that this is giving him the publicity he craves.

Thank the Gods for that. People of Europe need to see what's happening in some European countries.

Well, on the whole, I'd mock a country that refused entry to someone because they're afraid Muslims would react poorly. But blocking entry to someone awaiting trial is obviously something else.

It's perfectly fine IMHO, since the UK isn't part of the Schengen Agreement and Wilders isn't part of any [official] diplomatic mission.

He was invited by a member of the British parliament.

But that's for saying all this, at least I know what to tell you the next time you question my commitment to liberal democracy...

 

[GinandTonic]

1 - This guy is no champion of free speach, quite the opposit. He is calling for the Koran to be banned.

2 - He is under criminal charges in Holland.

3 - His is certainly a criminal under UK incitement laws.

4 - We've prohibited the entry of islamic preachers on far lesser grounds.

5 - There is no treaty in force that says we have to let him in.

6 - IIRC a Dutch court has already ruled that his parlamentary privilidge does not extend to his hate-mongering mash-up. Under which logic we respond to said video maker as a private citizen not as a representative.

 

[Kerozine]

He was invited by a member of the British parliament.

But that's for saying all this, at least I know what to tell you the next time you question my commitment to liberal democracy...

But not by the British government.

What is your commitment to liberal democracy?

 

[sysyphus]

4 - We've prohibited the entry of islamic preachers on far lesser grounds.

And how intersting it is that a thread like this doesn't emerge on those occasions...

Anyway, I hope the UK isn't being too nasty over who they let in, I'm popping by for a visit next week.

 

[GinandTonic]

And how intersting it is that a thread like this doesn't emerge on those occasions...

Anyway, I hope the UK isn't being too nasty over who they let in, I'm popping by for a visit next week.

Nah, we wov Canadians.

 

[Samson]

How is he inciting hatred? By voicing his opinion, that Koran is in fact inciting hatred against all unbelievers (based on many quotes from it)? Oh, the irony

That is a matter for the court. There is obviously a case to answer.

Though I am well into free speach. I belive to ban these unfarourable memes just makes them more attractive to the people who may be influenced by them. But if you ban some hate speach you have to ban it all.

You can slam religion all day long in the EU, with one exception - Islam. Islam is a big no-no. Muslims might get so offended that they'd feel compelled to act violently, and that's not something we'd like, right? So let's rather get rid of the offensive ideas - freedom of speech and the sort - and of annoying people, that will make our Muslim friends happy.

If he said this stuff about Jews or christians (in some countries at least) he would be in much more trouble.

He was invited by a member of the British parliament.

And banned by a seniour member of pariment.

 

[Winner]

1 - This guy is no champion of free speach, quite the opposit. He is calling for the Koran to be banned.

Exactly like the Mein Kampf is banned on the very same basis on which you banned him from entering your wonderful free country.

2 - He is under criminal charges in Holland.

We had a thread about that too, and it's obvious that the charges are a joke and an insult to any free-thinking person.

3 - His is certainly a criminal under UK incitement laws.

I forgot that Britain was one of the few countries which had not reprinted the Danish Muhammad cartoos. It's really a sad thing that France with all its problems is protecting its free speech more than Britain.

4 - We've prohibited the entry of islamic preachers on far lesser grounds.

Doesn't matter, you have plenty of hate-spitting violence preaching islamofascists there already.

He is not inciting to violence, he is not calling for a holy war, but somehow he is treated worse than many terrorist supporters. What a sorry country you have there...

5 - There is no treaty in force that says we have to let him in.

That's right. It's only dictated by a common sense, but hey, I know you lost that in Britain a long ago.

6 - IIRC a Dutch court has already ruled that his parlamentary privilidge does not extend to his hate-mongering mash-up. Under which logic we respond to said video maker as a private citizen not as a representative.

More excuses.


Funny this come from a country so full of rabid fuming eurosceptics who are insulting the EU with their every word.

I feel offended! I demand than the eurosceptic Brits are kicked out of the European Parliament and denied access to continental Europe! In the name of freedom!

Bah