DUTCH FILMMAKER IN COURT OVER ANTI-ISLAM HATE SPEECH

Dutch far-right lawmaker Geert Wilders on Wednesday appeared in an Amsterdam court for the first time in connection with charges of inciting racial hatred against Muslims. Wilders, who has compared the Koran to Hitler's Mein Kampf, "has always made his statements in his capacity as a public representative," his lawyer Bram Moszkowicz argued at the start of the hearing, held amid heavy security.

 The 46-year-old MP, creator of the controversial anti-Islam film Fitna, was greeted outside the Amsterdam district court by about 200 supporters, some of whom came from Belgium and Germany to attend the proceedings. Wednesday's hearing was to work out the modalities for Wilders' trial, for which no date has been set and which he claims is a "political process." Moszkowicz argued that this court had no jurisdiction to hear the case, arguing the Supreme Court was the competent authority for allegations involving misconduct by an MP. But prosecutor Birgit van Roessel said that "expressing his opinion in the media or through other channels is not part of an MP's duties." Lawmakers only enjoy immunity for their utterances when these are made in the confines of parliament.

Wilders faces five charges of religious insult and anti-Muslim incitement after a court last week dismissed his final challenge against the pending prosecution. He stands accused of insulting Muslims by describing Islam as a fascist religion and calling for the banning of the Koran. He is also charged with inciting hatred and discrimination for stating that Moroccan youths were violent, calling for Dutch borders to be closed to all "non-western immigrants", and advocating an end to what he terms "the Islamic invasion." Wilders faces up to two years in jail if convicted.

original posting

AFP

Hate Crimes Rise Follows BNP Victories

Documented cases of hate crime increased in wards in the West Midlands, London and Essex after the election of a BNP member to the local councils, despite the fall of crimes in wider police areas. These findings come as the BNP begin their 2010 general election campaign in earnest in Barking and Dagenham where party Fhurer Nick Griffin will be running.

Should we be surprised?

Well not really, what we should be more suprised about is that there are figures to demonstrate this. In 2009 the UK government released a report stating that most hate crimes are never reported, so the figures will actually be a lot higher than the Guardian newspaper story covered. Although the UK’s government recognise this fact it is having very little impact in changing it.

Only in 2009 did the USA seriously begin to recognise that hate crime incidents motivated by race, relegion, sexual orientaion were different to other crimes. And have finally establised laws to deal with the incidents, which is quite alarming when in 2009 the Sothern Poverty Law Centre (a very large civil rights organisation) stated there were 926 active ‘hate groups’ in the USA and the FBI figures for 2008 showed 9,691 incidents; that’s not all incidents in the USA, just ones serious enough to be investigated by the FBI. Up until now the hate element of the crime was not recorded by the avarage police department, so there are no reliable figures.

Now in a country where free speech allows hate speech should we be surprised that hate flourishes? Probably not. And we should not be surprised either that the BNP also campaign for the removal of laws that prevent hate speech.

The figures support the simple fact that where the BNP take hold, hate rises. And if we ever give them a free hand to remove the restrictions to prevent them using hate speech we should be ready for a hell of a lot more.

Hate Groups Using Social Networking Sites to Recruit and Inform

Yesterday on the anti-BNP Hope Not Hate website an item about the apparent cracks that are appearing in the anti-Islamic Group the English Defence League was published. We found this article an interesting read but it only briefly mentions the fact that the EDL use social networking sites as a way to gain support and spread hate propaganda.

Yet again another hate group comes to light that have found a valuable tool in the allowance of social networks to refuse to take a moralistic stance and do something to help combat race/religious/sexuality hate promotion on their sites. Until they decide that although free speech should not be silenced, hate speech is a different language and should be prevented.

The full EDL story can be found here.
Hope Not Hate

Facebook Argue Holocaust Denial Not Anti-Semitic Hate Speech

In 2009 an interesting article appeared on the UK’s BBC web site that has largely been over looked.

It relates to the internet and does Facebook have the right to decide that a holocaust denial group is not hate speech yet a KKK group is. As holocaust denial in its essence expresses a denial of events rather than a impartial examination isn’t it in fact Anti-Semitic and obviously a tool

for the promotion of hate speech.

The full article be found here.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8097979.stm