1 July 2008
 
No charges against Wilders
Populist politician Geert Wilders has returned to the newspapers after a brief absence. On Monday, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Amsterdam ruled that it would not bring charges against him.

Muslim organisations and governments have been demanding that Wilders be tried for insulting Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, discriminating and spreading hatred against Muslims and insulting Muslims and their religion.

The Jordanian public prosecutor has brought charges against Wilders and has issued an international warrant for his arrest.
 
The Public Prosecutor’s Office, which based its ruling on Dutch and European law, sought the advice of an anti-discrimination centre and four independent legal experts.

It concluded that Wilders comments should be seen within the context of the current debate in Dutch society on Muslim extremism.

“The Freedom Party leader did not insult Muslims (as people). He criticised a religion which he considers a dangerous ideology.”

De Volkskrant devotes an editorial to the public prosecutor’s ruling which it describes as “prudent”.

It points out that although some of Wilders comments can be considered insulting, which means that in theory they could be viewed as a punishable offence, politicians must be able to speak freely about signals they receive from all segments of society.
 
The Protestant newspaper Trouw disagrees with the verdict.

In an editorial entitled ‘Wilders can go his own sweet way’, Trouw calls on the public prosecutor to reconsider the ruling. It writes that his criticism of religion (with statements such as “the sick ideology of Allah and Muhammad” and his description of the Qur’an as a “Fascist book”) cannot be separated from his proposal to close the borders to Muslim immigrants and ban the building of mosques.

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