C L O S E R

Protected: nu.nl/algemeen | Rotterdam onderzoekt Turkse organisaties

Posted on July 17th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

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Tabsir.net – Transnational Civil Society, Institution-Building, and IT: Reflections from the Middle East

Posted on July 16th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Blogosphere, Important Publications.

tabsir.net
Transnational Civil Society, Institution-Building, and IT: Reflections from the Middle East
Written by Jon Anderson

Abstract
The important connectives of information technology will come with institutions that successfully merge IT, transnationalism, and ‘civil’ society such that each conveys its properties to the other. How to conceptualize and understand these properties is a compelling need for social theory. Comparative study of the Internet in the Middle East, including its supporting and related technologies, points to the crucial role of alliance-building and coalitions that create new institutions. Some of the less-evident ones are the more transnational and ‘civil,’ providing points of comparison – even suggesting potential future directions – to others not so apparently transnational or civil. Some elements so far not brought into analysis include engineering cultures and the more general practices of thought they privilege, alumni networks that link these cultures with more material resources but also importantly with social capital, and how those pull or are pulled together in projects that are expanding the envelope for IT generally and for its most prominent proxy and gathering point in the region, the Internet.

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Protected: AD.nl – ’Gouda werkt moslimschool tegen’

Posted on July 16th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Gouda Issues.

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Protected: nrc.nl – Binnenland – 'Regeling Iraanse studenten niet te handhaven'

Posted on July 15th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

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Protected: nrc.nl – Binnenland – ‘Regeling Iraanse studenten niet te handhaven’

Posted on July 15th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

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Rechtspraak.nl – Bij gezinshereniging geen inburgeringsexamen in buitenland vereist

Posted on July 15th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

Rechtspraak.nl – Bij gezinshereniging geen inburgeringsexamen in buitenland vereist
Bij gezinshereniging geen inburgeringsexamen in buitenland vereist

Amsterdam, 15 juli 2008 – De Vreemdelingenkamer van de Amsterdamse rechtbank heeft vandaag een uitspraak gedaan over het inburgeringsvereiste voor vreemdelingen in het buitenland.
Een vreemdeling die voor langere tijd naar Nederland wil komen, moet eerst in zijn eigen land een machtiging tot voorlopig verblijf (mvv) aanvragen. Pas als hij die heeft gekregen, mag hij naar Nederland reizen om een verblijfsvergunning aan te vragen.
Sinds 2005 eist de Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken bovendien dat de vreemdeling voor het krijgen van zo´n mvv eerst in het land van herkomst het basisexamen inburgering haalt.
De rechtbank Amsterdam heeft nu bepaald dat de Minister een mvv-aanvraag voor gezinshereniging niet mag afwijzen omdat het inburgeringsexamen niet vooraf is gehaald.
Het ging in de uitspraak om een Marokkaanse vrouw, die een mvv had aangevraagd om bij haar man in Nederland te gaan wonen. Haar aanvraag was door Minister afgewezen, omdat de vrouw het inburgeringsexamen in Marokko niet had gehaald. Van die afwijzing had zij beroep ingesteld bij de rechtbank Amsterdam. De rechtbank heeft beslist dat de aanvraag ten onrechte is afgewezen, nu de wet de Minister in dit geval geen bevoegdheid geeft om een mvv te weigeren. De rechtbank constateert dat de wetgever heeft verzuimd deze bevoegdheid in de wet op te nemen. Het gaat de taak van de rechter te buiten om dit te herstellen.
De uitspraak betekent niet dat de vreemdeling die voor gezinshereniging naar Nederland wil komen, nu in Nederland de procedure tot verlening van de verblijfsvergunning mag afwachten. Hij moet nog steeds in het land van herkomst een mvv aanvragen. Het is alleen niet meer nodig om daarvoor in het land van herkomst eerst een inburgeringsexamen af te leggen. Hij mag dat in Nederland doen. Voor vreemdelingen die om andere redenen dan gezinshereniging naar Nederland willen komen, blijft het halen van het inburgeringsexamen in het land van herkomst wèl vereist.

De Minister kan tegen deze uitspraak binnen vier weken hoger beroep instellen bij de Afdeling bestuursrechtspraak van de Raad van State.

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France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam | World news | The Guardian

Posted on July 14th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam | World news | The Guardian
France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam

· Expert says Moroccan lives ‘almost as a recluse’
· Case reopens debate about freedom of religion

* Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds of ‘insufficient assimilation’. France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds that her “radical” practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes.

The case yesterday reopened the debate about Islam in France, and how the secular republic reconciles itself with the freedom of religion guaranteed by the French constitution.

The woman, known as Faiza M, is 32, married to a French national and lives east of Paris. She has lived in France since 2000, speaks good French and has three children born in France. Social services reports said she lived in “total submission” to her husband. Her application for French nationality was rejected in 2005 on the grounds of “insufficient assimilation” into France. She appealed, invoking the French constitutional right to religious freedom and saying that she had never sought to challenge the fundamental values of France. But last month the Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, upheld the ruling.

“She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes,” it said.

“Is the burqa incompatible with French citizenship?” asked Le Monde, which broke the story. The paper said it was the first time the level of a person’s personal religious practice had been used to rule on their capacity be to assimilated into France.

The legal expert who reported to the Council of State said the woman’s interviews with social services revealed that “she lives almost as a recluse, isolated from French society”.

The report said: “She has no idea about the secular state or the right to vote. She lives in total submission to her male relatives. She seems to find this normal and the idea of challenging it has never crossed her mind.”

The woman had said she was not veiled when she lived in Morocco and had worn the burqa since arriving in France at the request of her husband. She said she wore it more from habit than conviction.

Daniele Lochak, a law professor not involved in the case, said it was bizarre to consider that excessive submission to men was a reason not to grant citizenship. “If you follow that to its logical conclusion, it means that women whose partners beat them are also not worthy of being French,” he told Le Monde.

Jean-Pierre Dubois, head of France’s Human Rights League, said he was “vigilant” and was seeking more information.

France is home to nearly 5 million Muslims, roughly half of whom are French citizens. Criteria taken into account for granting French citizenship includes “assimilation”, which normally focuses on how well the candidate speaks French. In the past nationality was denied to Muslims who were known to have links with extremists or who had publicly advocated radicalism, but that was not the case of Faiza M.

The ruling comes weeks after a controversy prompted by a court annulment of the marriage of two Muslims because the husband said the wife was not a virgin as she had claimed to be.

France’s ban on headscarves and other religious symbols in state schools in 2004 sparked a heated debate over freedom and equality within the secular republic. The French government adheres to the theory that all French citizens are equal before the republic, and religion or ethnic background are matters for the private sphere. In practice, rights groups say, society is plagued by discrimination.

The president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has stressed the importance of “integration” into French life. Part of his heightened controls on immigrants is a new law to make foreigners who want to join their families sit an exam on French language and values before leaving their countries.

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France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam | World news | The Guardian

Posted on July 14th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam | World news | The Guardian
France rejects Muslim woman over radical practice of Islam

· Expert says Moroccan lives ‘almost as a recluse’
· Case reopens debate about freedom of religion

* Angelique Chrisafis in Paris
France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds of ‘insufficient assimilation’. France has denied citizenship to a Moroccan woman who wears a burqa on the grounds that her “radical” practice of Islam is incompatible with basic French values such as equality of the sexes.

The case yesterday reopened the debate about Islam in France, and how the secular republic reconciles itself with the freedom of religion guaranteed by the French constitution.

The woman, known as Faiza M, is 32, married to a French national and lives east of Paris. She has lived in France since 2000, speaks good French and has three children born in France. Social services reports said she lived in “total submission” to her husband. Her application for French nationality was rejected in 2005 on the grounds of “insufficient assimilation” into France. She appealed, invoking the French constitutional right to religious freedom and saying that she had never sought to challenge the fundamental values of France. But last month the Council of State, France’s highest administrative body, upheld the ruling.

“She has adopted a radical practice of her religion, incompatible with essential values of the French community, particularly the principle of equality of the sexes,” it said.

“Is the burqa incompatible with French citizenship?” asked Le Monde, which broke the story. The paper said it was the first time the level of a person’s personal religious practice had been used to rule on their capacity be to assimilated into France.

The legal expert who reported to the Council of State said the woman’s interviews with social services revealed that “she lives almost as a recluse, isolated from French society”.

The report said: “She has no idea about the secular state or the right to vote. She lives in total submission to her male relatives. She seems to find this normal and the idea of challenging it has never crossed her mind.”

The woman had said she was not veiled when she lived in Morocco and had worn the burqa since arriving in France at the request of her husband. She said she wore it more from habit than conviction.

Daniele Lochak, a law professor not involved in the case, said it was bizarre to consider that excessive submission to men was a reason not to grant citizenship. “If you follow that to its logical conclusion, it means that women whose partners beat them are also not worthy of being French,” he told Le Monde.

Jean-Pierre Dubois, head of France’s Human Rights League, said he was “vigilant” and was seeking more information.

France is home to nearly 5 million Muslims, roughly half of whom are French citizens. Criteria taken into account for granting French citizenship includes “assimilation”, which normally focuses on how well the candidate speaks French. In the past nationality was denied to Muslims who were known to have links with extremists or who had publicly advocated radicalism, but that was not the case of Faiza M.

The ruling comes weeks after a controversy prompted by a court annulment of the marriage of two Muslims because the husband said the wife was not a virgin as she had claimed to be.

France’s ban on headscarves and other religious symbols in state schools in 2004 sparked a heated debate over freedom and equality within the secular republic. The French government adheres to the theory that all French citizens are equal before the republic, and religion or ethnic background are matters for the private sphere. In practice, rights groups say, society is plagued by discrimination.

The president, Nicolas Sarkozy, has stressed the importance of “integration” into French life. Part of his heightened controls on immigrants is a new law to make foreigners who want to join their families sit an exam on French language and values before leaving their countries.

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What is a prostitute?

Posted on July 14th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Gender, Kinship & Marriage Issues.

Via Culture Matters I came across an interesting article of Lisa Wynn in American Sexuality Magazine: What is a Prostitute? In Egypt the oldest profession isn’t just a sex-for-cash exchange.

It took me a long time to understand what Egyptians meant when they said “prostitute,” and during the first year of my anthropological fieldwork, I was plenty confused. Every time the word “prostitute” came up in conversation, I listened carefully to try to understand the context and how it was being used. It seemed to have to do with behavior, dress, social class, and sexual experience. But it wasn’t until I could finally shed my own cultural preconceptions about prostitution fundamentally being tied up with money and sex that I finally understood what my Egyptian friends meant.

[…]

What is involved in defining a prostitute in Egypt, then, is a complex moral judgment about a woman’s social behavior, the number of her sexual partners, the extent to which she submits to familial controls over her social life, and her loyalty to her current romantic partner. Nationality comes into play in the examples above because of the way it overlaps with class and power in the Middle East […]

Read also the interesting discussion about the article at AlterNet.

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How Heavy Metal Is Working Its Way Into Islam : NPR

Posted on July 13th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Important Publications, Young Muslims, Youth culture (as a practice).

How Heavy Metal Is Working Its Way Into Islam : NPR
Talk of the Nation, July 10, 2008 · Music like heavy metal, punk, hip-hop and reggae — often voices of protest — are typically considered immoral in the Muslim world. But this music may also turn out to be the soundtrack of a revolution unfolding across that world, according to one author. Mark LeVine, an author, musician and professor of Middle Eastern history, talks about the young generation of heavy metal fans in the Middle East and Northern Africa.

Excerpt: ‘Heavy Metal Islam’

by Mark LeVine

The first time I heard the words “heavy metal” and “Islam” in the same sentence, I was confused, to say the least. It was around 5:00 p.m. on a hot July day in the city of Fes, Morocco in 2002. I was at the bar of the five-star Palais Jamai Hotel with a group of friends having a drink—and only one drink, considering they were about twenty-five dollars apiece—to celebrate a birthday. Out of nowhere the person sitting across from me described a punk performance he had seen not long before we met, in the city of Rabat.

“There are Muslim punks? In Morocco?” I asked him.

The idea of a young Moroccan with a mohawk and a Scottish kilt almost caused me to spill my drink.

“Of course,” he replied. “And the metal scene here is good too.” That the possibility of a Muslim heavy-metal scene came as a total surprise to me only underscored how much I still had to learn about Morocco, and the Muslim world more broadly, even after a dozen years studying, traveling, and living in it. If there could be such a thing as a Heavy Metal Islam, I thought, then perhaps the future was far brighter than most observers of the Muslim world imagined less than a year after September 11, 2001.

I shouldn’t have been surprised at the notion of Muslim metalheads or punkers. Muslim history is full of characters and movements that seemed far out of the mainstream in their day, but that nevertheless helped bring about farreaching changes in their societies. As I nursed my drink, I contemplated the various musical, cultural, and political permutations that could be produced by combining Islam and hard rock. I began to wonder: What could Muslim metal artists and their fans teach us about the state of Islam today?

(more…)

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Protected: Telegraaf – Wilders lacht om claim imam

Posted on July 13th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: ISIM/RU Research, Public Islam, Religious Movements.

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Protected: Wall Street Journal – Why Islam is Unfunny for a Cartoonist

Posted on July 13th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News, Public Islam.

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Protected: Wie wordt de Nederlandse legerimam? | Trouw

Posted on July 11th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Islam in the Netherlands.

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Protected: Wie wordt de Nederlandse legerimam? | Trouw

Posted on July 11th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Islam in the Netherlands.

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Protected: AD.nl – Rotterdam Stad – Ibn Ghaldoun: ‘Je mag niks’

Posted on July 10th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

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Protected: Omstreden posters bijna in vrijdenkersgang – DePers.nl

Posted on July 9th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

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Protected: Lesje integratie van Zijne Majesteit de Koning – Binnenland – de Volkskrant

Posted on July 9th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Morocco.

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Moroccan Islamist prisoners "in danger" during hunger strike | TopNews Law

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Morocco.

Moroccan Islamist prisoners “in danger” during hunger strike | TopNews Law
Casablanca, Morocco – Families of Moroccan hunger-striking Islamist prisoners demonstrated Tuesday in front of Casablanca’s Oukacha prison, saying that the lives of more than 50 inmates were in danger.

The inmates have been on hunger strike for two months over the deterioration of their prison conditions.

“Their lives are seriously in danger,” Abderrahim Mouhtade, president of the association Annassir that defends them, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Some of the inmates have been hospitalized.

The inmates say their prison conditions have deteriorated, with the prison authorities refusing to grant them any concessions after nine Islamists escaped from a prison in Kenitra near Rabat in April.

The nine had been convicted of links with the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombings that killed 45 people. One of them was caught a week later, while the others are still on the run. dpa

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Moroccan Islamist prisoners “in danger” during hunger strike | TopNews Law

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Morocco.

Moroccan Islamist prisoners “in danger” during hunger strike | TopNews Law
Casablanca, Morocco – Families of Moroccan hunger-striking Islamist prisoners demonstrated Tuesday in front of Casablanca’s Oukacha prison, saying that the lives of more than 50 inmates were in danger.

The inmates have been on hunger strike for two months over the deterioration of their prison conditions.

“Their lives are seriously in danger,” Abderrahim Mouhtade, president of the association Annassir that defends them, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Some of the inmates have been hospitalized.

The inmates say their prison conditions have deteriorated, with the prison authorities refusing to grant them any concessions after nine Islamists escaped from a prison in Kenitra near Rabat in April.

The nine had been convicted of links with the 2003 Casablanca suicide bombings that killed 45 people. One of them was caught a week later, while the others are still on the run. dpa

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Protected: nrc.nl – Binnenland – Omstreden imam weer aan het werk bij hogeschool

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

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In Morocco, a festival where tolerance is traditional and Jews pray together with Muslims – International Herald Tribune

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Morocco.

In Morocco, a festival where tolerance is traditional and Jews pray together with Muslims – International Herald Tribune
In Morocco, a festival where tolerance is traditional and Jews pray together with Muslims
The Associated Press
Published: July 8, 2008
SAFI, Morocco: It’s an uncommon sight for an Arab country: hundreds of joyous Jewish pilgrims gathering without fear around a rabbi’s tomb, greeted by local Muslim officials who share a prayer with them at a synagogue.Yet most of the 400 Jews who converged on the Moroccan coastal town of Safi — some from nearby cities, others from as far as France or Israel — at a weekend pilgrimage said they felt welcome here.

While religious tensions flare in Jerusalem and beyond, in Morocco, Jews and Muslims say they nurture a legacy of tolerance and maintain common sanctuaries where adherents of both religions pray. Decades of emigration to Israel by Morocco’s Jews and terrorist bombings in Casablanca that targeted Jewish sites haven’t diminished the draw of these annual pilgrimages.

During the festival that began Friday, visitors prayed and feasted around the shrine of Abraham Ben Zmirro, a rabbi reputed to have fled persecution in Spain in the 15th century and then lived in Safi, where he is buried with six siblings.

A half-Jewish, half-Muslim band played local tunes during a banquet, including a song in French, Arabic and Hebrew with the line: “There is only one God, you worship Him sitting down and I while standing up.”
The pilgrims were joined Sunday by Aaron Monsenego, the great rabbi of Morocco, who prayed alongside the regional governor and several other Muslim officials at the shrine’s synagogue for the good health of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and his family.

“It’s very important for us to pray altogether,” Monsenego told The Associated Press.

Regional governor Larbi Hassan Sebbari said, “We’re also very proud of it: it gives a lesson to other countries of what we do together without any taboo.”

While several Arab states refuse to recognize the Jewish state’s right to exist, reject Israeli visitors and ignore the remnants of their local Jewish heritage, Moroccans insist it is not the case in this moderate Muslim nation and U.S. ally.

Once home to some 300,000 Jews, Morocco hosts the Arab world’s only Jewish museum, funds Jewish institutions and frequently holds events to celebrate Judeo-Moroccan heritage.

Still, the Jewish population here has dwindled to about 4,000 — most in Casablanca. Economics, fears of living in an Arab state and sporadic discrimination drove hundreds of thousands of Moroccan Jews to Israel, Europe or America over the past few decades.

Many left in 1948 when the state of Israel was created, or in 1956 when Morocco won independence from France. Other waves followed after the Israeli-Arab conflicts of 1967 and 1973 caused riots in some Moroccan towns.

Jewish leaders who stayed say they practice their religion freely and that synagogues are well protected by police, especially since the 2003 bombings in Casablanca. And despite the bombings, Casablanca — Morocco’s commercial capital — still boasts 32 active synagogues.

“There was never any racism in Safi,” said Haim Ohana, one of only 10 Jewish people remaining in a town where 6,000 Jews once lived. “People left from here because they were poor,” said Ohana, who helped organize the pilgrimage and runs several businesses.

The pilgrimage rituals are called Moussem in Arabic and Hilloula in Hebrew.

Many of the pilgrims, including ultra-Orthodox Jews from Israel and French and Canadian businessmen, are emigres who say they come to pray in Safi because of their emotional ties to Morocco.

Therese Elisha, an Israeli, said she makes the pilgrimage every other year. “This is the town where I grew up, the synagogue where I prayed,” she said. “I feel at home.”

“We’re maintaining a bridge over the divide of the exodus,” said Simone Merra, a human resources manager in Paris.

Some of Morocco’s Jews wonder how long their community will remain. Nadia Bensimon, who runs a fashion boutique in a coastal town, said she had no plans to leave. “But that could change if the Islamists become too powerful,” she said.

Morocco’s main Islamist opposition party — Adl wal Ihsan — enjoys broad support, but it is banned from politics; secular parties dominate parliament.

Though most of his relatives now live abroad, Ohana said his family traces its arrival in Morocco to 2,076 years ago.

“As for Safi, we’ve been here for nine centuries,” he said. “It’s my town, I’d see no reason to leave.”

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Marc Sageman on the battle for young Muslims' hearts and minds and the future of the leaderless jihad – Full Comment

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Important Publications, International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

Marc Sageman on the battle for young Muslims’ hearts and minds and the future of the leaderless jihad – Full Comment

There has been talk of an al-Qaeda resurgence, but the truth is that most of the hard core members of the first and second waves have been killed or captured. The survival of the social movement they inspired relies on the continued inflow of new members. But this movement is vulnerable to whatever may diminish its appeal among young people. Its allure thrives only at the abstract fantasy level. The few times its aspirations have been translated into reality — the Taliban in Afghanistan, parts of Algeria during its civil war and, more recently, in Iraq’s Anbar province — were particularly repulsive to most Muslims.

What’s more, a leaderless social movement is permanently at the mercy of its participants. As each generation attempts to define itself in contrast to its predecessor, what appeals to the present generation of young would-be radicals may not appeal to the next. At present, the major source of appeal is the anger and moral outrage provoked by the invasion of Iraq. But as the Western footprint there fades so will the appeal of fighting it.

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Marc Sageman on the battle for young Muslims’ hearts and minds and the future of the leaderless jihad – Full Comment

Posted on July 8th, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Important Publications, International Terrorism, Religious and Political Radicalization, Young Muslims.

Marc Sageman on the battle for young Muslims’ hearts and minds and the future of the leaderless jihad – Full Comment

There has been talk of an al-Qaeda resurgence, but the truth is that most of the hard core members of the first and second waves have been killed or captured. The survival of the social movement they inspired relies on the continued inflow of new members. But this movement is vulnerable to whatever may diminish its appeal among young people. Its allure thrives only at the abstract fantasy level. The few times its aspirations have been translated into reality — the Taliban in Afghanistan, parts of Algeria during its civil war and, more recently, in Iraq’s Anbar province — were particularly repulsive to most Muslims.

What’s more, a leaderless social movement is permanently at the mercy of its participants. As each generation attempts to define itself in contrast to its predecessor, what appeals to the present generation of young would-be radicals may not appeal to the next. At present, the major source of appeal is the anger and moral outrage provoked by the invasion of Iraq. But as the Western footprint there fades so will the appeal of fighting it.

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Woensdag: Wilders doodzwijgen – Opinie – de Volkskrant

Posted on July 2nd, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News.

Woensdag: Wilders doodzwijgen – Opinie – de Volkskrant

Ibrahim Wijbenga, Eindhoven, 01-07-2008 22:42

Het Openbaar Ministerie heeft besloten geen vervolging in te stellen tegen Geert Wilders tegen wie ongeveer veertig aangiften zijn gedaan wegens haatzaaien en belediging van moslims (Voorpagina, 1 juli). Ik ben blij met deze uitspraak. Vervolging van Geert Wilders zou alleen maar tot nog meer publiciteit hebben geleid. En hoogstwaarschijnlijk tot zetelwinst voor de PVV. Bovendien zou het hem tot een martelaar hebben gemaakt die tegen alle verdrukking in voor zijn idealen blijft strijden. Moslimorganisaties moeten ook niet in beroep gaan tegen deze beslissing. Geert Wilders bestaat bij de gratie van publiciteit. Dat zouden de Nederlandse moslims inmiddels moeten weten. Geert Wilders moet voortaan worden doodgezwegen. Dat is de beste remedie en daarmee tref je hem het hardst. Een betere manier om hem te bestrijden is er niet.

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Wilders did not violate Dutch discrimination law – News from The Netherlands – Expatica

Posted on July 1st, 2008 by martijn.
Categories: Misc. News, Public Islam.

News Wilders did not violate Dutch discrimination law – News from The Netherlands – Expatica
Wilders did not violate Dutch discrimination law 01/07/2008 00:00

Geert Wilders will not be prosecuted for remarks he made about Islam as his remarks were directed at the religion and not at Muslims.

1 July 2008

THE HAGUE – Dutch Chief Public Prosecutor Leo de Wit told the Dutch media on Monday he will not prosecute legislator Geert Wilders for remarks he made about Islam.

Wilders made his remarks in the Dutch media and in his political film Fitna released late March.

Attorney Els Lucas and a number of Muslims filed a complaint with the police last summer after Wilders publicly called the Koran a “fascist book.” They requested the public prosecutor prosecute Wilders.

But following months of research, the Justice Ministry found the leader of the Dutch Freedom party (PVV) did not violate Dutch discrimination legislation nor did he incite to violence, even though several of his remarks were “offensive to Muslims”.

The chief prosecutor also said Wilders’ remarks referred to Islam as a religion and not to Muslims as individuals.

Lucas and the group of Muslims said they would now request the Dutch court go through a special legal procedure, called “Article 12,” to force the justice department to prosecute Wilders after all.

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