By Brooke M. Goldstein & Aaron Eitan Meyer
On Wednesday, freedom of speech in Europe took a new and devastating turn, as a Dutch appellate court ordered the prosecution of Geert Wilders, parliamentarian and filmmaker, charging him with “inciting hatred and discrimination” against Muslims for his film exposing the threat of radical Islam.
This ruling comes a mere six months after the public prosecutor’s office found Wilders’ dialogue contributed to the debate on Islam and that he had not committed any criminal offense. Now, curiously, the court has done an about-face and decreed that charges may be brought against the politician, and that prosecuting him is somehow in “the public interest.”
After releasing a ten-minute self-produced film entitled “Fitna,” Wilders found himself wound up in a litany of “hate speech” litigation, one such suit filed by a radical Imam asking for 55,000 Euros in compensation for his hurt feelings.