This begs the question, how soon will sites like The Jawa Report, Little Green Footballs, and the Counterterrorism Blog be banned in Britain? Dutch protest Britain’s ban of right-wing lawmaker
The British government has banned Dutch right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders from visiting the country to show his anti-Islam film “Fitna” at the Houses of Parliament.
Wilders was invited by a member of British Parliament’s upper house, the House of Lords, to show his 15-minute film, which criticizes the Quran as a “fascist book.” But he was informed Tuesday in a letter from the British Embassy he would not be allowed into Britain.
The film sparked violent protests around the Muslim world last year for linking Quranic verses with footage of terrorist attacks.
“Don’t tell people our religion is violent, or we will get violent.”
Wilders has lived for years with round-the-clock security because of his fierce criticism of Islam. He has urged his government to ban the Quran in the same way it did Adolf Hitler’s book “Mein Kampf” and warned of a “tsunami” of Islam swamping the Netherlands.
Sounds peaceful of the RoP, eh? Wilders says he will defy the ban, and travel to England. Will he be arrested? And this all happened after a protest was lodged by Muslim House of Lords member Nazir Ahmed.
But in a statement the Home Office said it “opposes extremism in all its forms” and would work to “stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country.”
Wilders said the embassy letter informed him he was being refused entry because his views “threaten community harmony and therefore public security” in Britain.
I guess Britain has forgotten 7/11. Maybe they should look across the Channel and see all the constant violence and burnt cars via the RoP.
Charles at Little Green Footballs does have a point about Wilders, though
However, Wilders himself does not deserve to be called an icon of free speech, since he explicitly wants to ban the Koran and make Islam illegal in Europe; in other words, he wants to take away other people’s freedom of speech and freedom of religion, and that is simply wrong. Book banning is what totalitarians do, not believers in free speech.
Good point.
