| donderdag, 12 februari 2009 | |
| Geert Wilders has been denied entry into the United Kingdom. The Freedom Party leader was invited to show his film Fitna in the UK's House of Lords. Upon arrival at Heathrow Airport he was detained and told that he would not be allowed to enter Great Britain. "I am in a detention centre at Heathrow," Wilders told The Times. "They took my passport. I will not be allowed to enter the country. They will send me back within a few hours." | |
| Read more... |
http://www.geertwilders.nl/
How popular is this move by the ruling party of Britain?
LabourHome Poll:I wonder if gay atheists get it?
Should Geert Wilders be barred from entering the UK?
CURRENT RESULTS with 278 Total Votes :
Yes 4 votes - 1 %
No 274 votes - 98 %
Well, I'll be surprised. They do, some of them.
PinkNews.co.uk, UK 12 February 2009
A gay humanist group has said the Home Secretary was wrong to ban a Dutch MP who is critical of Islam. Jaqui Smith said that Geert Wilders, a leading rightwing politician and a fierce critic of Muslims , has been denied permission to enter Britain on the grounds that his presence would damage community relations and threaten public order.
The Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) had declared its opposition to the ban.
"We maintain that in a free society anyone should have the right to criticise religion without being banned, dubbed racist or, even worse, threatened with death as the humanist author Saman Rushdie was over his book The Satanic Verses," said PTT secretary George Broadhead.
"There can be no doubt from reading its holy books, the Qur'an and the Hadith, that Islam is a homophobic religion, which at worst has lead to the barbaric torture and murder of LGBT people in Islamic theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia.
"But it is also deeply mysoginist and hostile to apostates and unbelievers like humanists.
"As the website the Skeptic's Annotated Qur'an indicates, virtually every page is a manifesto for intolerance. It is chock-full of the dire punishments in store for those who don't adhere to its beliefs.
"Those politicians who bend over backwards to portray Islam as a religion or tolerance and peace are either abysmally ignorant or deliberately ignoring the facts.
"Moreover, Jacqui Smith's decision to ban Mr Wilders is in blatant contrast to her decision to allow Ibrahim Mousawi, chief spokesman of the Lebanese group Hizbollah - a militant Islamacist if ever there was one - to enter Britain last May - a clear example of double standards."
Cabinet Office minister Liam Byrne said, on BBC One's Question Time: "This guy wasn't coming here to exercise his right of free speech. This guy was trying to come here in order to sow division between us in this country.
"Everything I've heard about this guy tells me he's a bigot and the right place for him is to stay at home."
[....]
And there's this:Labour peer Lord Ahmed, who expressed his concerns to the parliamentary authorities about Mr Wilders' visit, told the BBC: "This man doesn't have any respect for law. He's doing this for publicity and he's seeking that and getting that."
He added: "If this man was allowed into this country it would certainly cause problems within communities around Britain."
Who, you ask, is Lord Ahmed? So happy you did.
29th January, 2009Lord Ahmed was mightily pleased with himself. He flew to Pakistan to say so.
Tonight peers should have been gathered in the House of Lords for a private viewing of Geert Wilders' film "Fitna". Wilders himself would have been present to answer questions. Instead it has been cancelled because this peer, Lord Ahmed, threatened to "mobilise 10,000″ if Wilders dared to show his face in Britain's parliament.
http://www.brusselsjournal.Barely had the invitation been sent to all the members of the House when Lord Ahmed raised hell. He threatened to mobilize 10,000 Muslims to prevent Mr. Wilders from entering the House and threatened to take the colleague who was organizing the event to court. The result is that the event, which should have taken place next Thursday was cancelled.
Lord Ahmed immediately went to the Pakistani press to boast about his achievement, which he calls "a victory for the Muslim community."
But what of Her Majesty's loyal opposition, those lions of free speech and democracy?
DOH!Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: 'Freedom of speech is our most precious freedom of all, because all the other freedoms depend on it.
'But there is a line to be drawn even with freedom of speech, and that is where it is likely to incite violence or hatred against someone or some group.
'Where there is risk of harm to others, there has to be some limit.
'Having watched Geert Wilders' movie Fitna, with its raw and emotional appeals to anti-Islamic feeling and its shocking images of violence, there is no doubt in my mind that he has overstepped the line that should be defended in a civilised society and that the Home Secretary's ruling is right.'
A spokesman for the Conservative Party said it did not wish to comment....
4 comments:
One hour later, give or take, the poll results are:
Yes 6 votes - 1 %
No 353 votes - 98 %
Canada is on track to become a police state too:
RCMP: Domestic terror threat growing
New laws would let police eavesdrop on Internet
Yeah, I thought I recognized your photo there. How are you?
I'm generally sympathetic toward the police, but you're right that the police will look for power wherever they can find it, like any group seeking advantage for their position. It won't do to complain about Left fascism and then ignore intrusions by the state to the same effect or worse. My hope is always for responsible citizens to take care of their own needs in their own communities, a populist programme that Sarah Palin epitomizes, to my mind. More power to the people; less power to the state. But to work toward that ideal means more people have to take the work of politics seriously or the vacuum fills up with professional minders rather than ordinary concerned citizens.
Geert Wilders is the kind of concerned citizen I think I mean here. We can all of us be of his type of activist, though perhaps not to the extent he is. That's not encumbrance. If we work hard, then there will be less state intrusion and we won't end up like England today. If not, the future looks poor for freedom, in Canada as well as Europe.
Thanks for the links.
The police can't ignore the fact that terrorists are using the internet in all kinds of ways. We might like to think we can have everything - all the great freedoms that the web makes available, and a traditional regard for privacy from the state. But in reality I think we have to choose: freedom or privacy. Since we will surely choose freedom, we need to say that since we are now becoming more transparent to the state - should it be interested in us - we can demand greater transparency and accountability from the state. In other words, we must own the state, not some unaccountable elite in "human rights" commissions and the like. That's freedom's quid pro quo.
Post a Comment