Geert Wilders On Trial

A reminder to those interested in participating once again in a SITA action, that the trial against Geert Wilders will begin on January 20. The following was posted on December 4, 2009 at the Dutch blog devoted to his case:

The 20th of January 2010 will be a crucial day for defending our freedom. This is the day when the political trial against Geert Wilders will start. Yesterday, Geert Wilders was summoned by the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) on behalf of the Court of Justice of Amsterdam. The indictment reads: group insult of Muslims, incitement to hatred and discrimination against Muslims due to their religion and incitement to hatred and discrimination against non-western immigrants and/or Moroccans due to their race.

Geert Wilders: "On the 20th of January 2010, a political trial will start. I am being prosecuted for my political convictions. The freedom of speech is on the verge of collapsing. If a politician is not allowed to criticise an ideology anymore, this means that we are lost, and it will lead to the end of our freedom. However I remain combative: I am convinced that I will be acquitted.”

In earlier stages, the PPS did not see any reason to prosecute Mr. Wilders.

Bram Moszkowicz, the lawyer on the case at hand, will submit a notice of objection to the summons on the point of group insult on behalf of Geert Wilders. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of the Netherlands ruled that even though it is indeed punishable to insult a group of people, it is not punishable to insult a religion as such. Due to this the order of the Court of Amsterdam on this point is deemed incorrect.


You may recall that a SITA action consists of sending letters (by snail mail preferably) and e-mails (if necessary) to the Amsterdam Tribunal with the goal of submerging the officials in as much tangible mail as possible. Apparently the strategy has worked. According to an article in Riposte Laïque, there were more than 6000 visits to the SITA website last January, resulting in hundreds of letters being sent to the Tribunal.

The letters, in English and French, are pre-written, and need only to be copied, placed in an envelope and sent to Amsterdam. First, please read this page from the SITAsecure website.

Then, scroll down to where the links are to the letters, decide on the format you prefer (Geert as Charlie Chaplin or Geert as Winston Churchill), click and follow carefully their instructions. You will see that they instruct you to print the first two pages of the web page. This means that you will print out only to the paragraph beginning: "People trying to silence Geert Wilders heavily need..."

Mail it to one of the addresses provided (they give you many options). Here is one all-purpose address:

Parnassusweg 220
Postbus 84500
1080 BN Amsterdam
Tel. 020 541 2111

Or use the address of the court of appeal:

Postbus 1312
1000 BH Amsterdam

At any rate, you should read the web page first, then make your decisions.

You can as always make a contribution at the Dutch website linked above.

The Geert Wilders tag below will lead you to the other articles I've posted on him.
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In addition, earlier today I received an e-mail with the following information:

A list of all Dutch embassies and consulates abroad can be found at the following url:

Dutch embassies abroad.

We strongly recommend that as many of you that have wide-spread contact lists, urge your friends and readers, to look up the relevant embassy in their home country, or in as many countries as they can handle, and write/fax/email the Ambassador and/or Consular staff on the travesty of Geert Wilders’ upcoming trial on January 20 2010.

There are fax numbers, addresses and in many cases, email addresses in the above list that can be used with great results.

You may want to mention the following 2-3 main points to be addressed:

- We note that Holland has always been a staunch ally of the West in its protection of Free Speech, now however, it seems that the old traditions have been abolished

- We abhor the decision of the Dutch Government and Justice Minister E.M.H. Hirsch Ballin to prosecute Hon Geert Wilders for hate speech on January 20 2010

- We urge the Government to immediately drop all charges and FREE GEERT WILDERS
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The above message is on the home page of Liberties Alliance, the website of the International Civil Liberties Alliance. I was not familiar with this website until now. Some of you may want to add it to your list of favorites, as it seems to be a rich resource of information.

If you have the time, you may also want to check out their article on EuroMed (the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership), a project that has long been promoted by Nicolas Sarkozy. This of course is a different topic. I will try to follow the story and report on it as time allows.