criminal views

Via The Penguin I see that a Dutch politician is to be tried for his views.

Geert Wilders, the leader of the extremist Freedom Party (PVV), said he was surprised that the Amsterdam Appeals Court is to allow his criminal prosecution for inciting hatred and of discriminating against Muslims by comparing their religion to Nazism.

"Mr Wilders' views constitute a criminal offence. [He] has insulted Islamic worshippers by attacking the symbols of the Islamic faith," the court stated, referring to his comparison of the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

I suspect that Mr Wilders' views are a little too extreme/authoritarian for my liking but, in the same way that I think the BNP should be allowed to exist, I don't see why someone's views are criminal.

Surely criminal would be Mr Wilders smacking a Muslim round the head with an iron bar, rather than comparing a book - when we get down to brass tacks that is what the Koran is - with another book.

I find both deeply abhorrent: Despite having a copy of Hitler's Hefty Tome sitting on my bookshelf for some years I've never managed to get more than a few chapters in even when I was studying the subject in depth. One hardly needs to say that the only sad thing about Hitler committing suicide was that he didn't film it. I am insulted by the views held by some (dare I say many?) Muslims particularly surrounding their treatment of women.

But to decide that the views of one group of people whose opinions cannot be proven and with whom billions of people in the world don't agree with are allowed to be presented whilst insulting them is not is deeply repulsive and dangerous.

It goes without saying that these pronouncements come via a European Court ruling who, by their actions, prove daily that they hate the people who pay their wages. The same beast who have been funding Hamas and who Israel ask to stop Hamas smuggling weapons into Gaza.

To ban people voicing their opinions, however insulting and unpleasant you find them, is to mimic the very party to which comparison caused such outrage.