A Victory For Freedom: Update on the Geert Wilders Trial, Friday, October 15, 2010

Posted: 15 Oct 2010 09:23 PM PDT

ACCORDING TO Radio Netherlands, "The Geert Wilders trial is as good as over. The public prosecutor has called for the populist politician to be acquitted of all charges against him. The trial will continue, but everything is now an anti-climax.

"During two days of intricately constructed arguments, the prosecutors told the court they found no evidence that Geert Wilders had broken the law.

"We request acquittal on fact 2...we request acquittal on fact 3." Statement after statement, and charge after charge, prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman, who took turns reading the arguments, said Wilders had not broken the law.

"The prosecutors consistently came to the same conclusion. What Wilders said may be 'hurtful to Muslims, and may be met with emotional responses', but he did not break the law.

"The prosecutors analysed each of Wilders' statements for each of the five charges against him. The charges included group defamation, inciting hatred of Muslims and non-western ethnic minorities, and inciting discrimination of Muslims and non-western ethnic minorities."

The conclusion was confirmed by Dutch News, which wrote: "The public prosecution department on Friday afternoon (October 15th, 2010) stated that Geert Wilders is not guilty of discriminating against Muslims. Earlier on Friday it announced he should also be found not guilty of inciting hatred.

"Prosecutors Birgit van Roessel and Paul Velleman reached their conclusions after a careful reading of interviews with and articles by the anti-Islam politician and a viewing of his anti-Koran film Fitna."

Geert Wilders and the forces of freedom have won this battle.

Let the trumpets sound, and let's all raise a glass to this victory. Join with people all over the world today and drink a toast to this triumph of freedom over the forces of tyranny. Free speech laws defeated hate speech laws. This is a moment worth commemorating.

And if you were one of those who helped alert others to Wilders' case, who made comments on other web sites or shared a post about it on Facebook, or if you participated in the SITA actions and wrote letters to the judge and prosecutors, please take a bow and give yourself a pat on the back. You deserve it.