Banned Dutch MP Geert Wilders may go to UK anyway

Wilders responded to the ban by the UK's Home Affairs Department in fighting mood, telling the Dutch media that he still intended to travel to the meeting at the House of Lords in London where he was invited to speak on the afternoon of February 12: "I'll see what happens at the border. Let them put me in handcuffs." One British Lord, Achmed, has threatened to march with 10,000 angry muslims on the House of Lord if Wilders were allowed to speak. see An online poll on the website of British newspaper The Daily Mail shows that an overwhelming majority of Daily Mail readers feel Dutch MP Geert Wilders should be allowed to adress the House of Lords. At the moment, the poll stands at 85% for and 15% against. vote here Geert Wilders had been invited by the UK Independence Party (UKIP) peer Lord Pearson to show his anti-Islam film 'Fitna' - which can be found on the internet -- and hold a Q&A session in Parliament February 12. His 17-minute documentary features verses directly from the Koran and screened public statements by islamic leaders - Wilders said he 'merely let the Q'uran and islamic leaders speak for themselves'. The Dutch government has also been deeply angered by the ban on their MP. Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen has lodged formal objections with the British embassy in The Hague and with his British counterpart over the unprecedented barring of an EU-parliamentarian by another EU country. See and also see here Verhagen told his UK colleague on Tuesday that the Dutch cabinet was 'very unhappy' about their shock decision to ban a parliamentarian from another EU- country, his ministerial spokesman said. Verhagen has lodged formal objections with Milliband and the UK ambassador in The Hague. This move is unprecedented in European politics - to ban a citizen from another EU country who has no criminal record, and who moreover is a leader of a growing Dutch political party, has never happened before. See Wilders wants more freedom of speech... This ban also is ironic: only a week earlier, Wilders spoke up strongly in favour of widening freedom of speech laws in Europe, writing in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. He reacted to his possible participation in a Danish congress about islam and freedom of speech.He would if invited, he said, 'plead for a nearly 100 percent total freedom of speech. Everything should be possible except to issue calls for violence. "All the EU laws against blasphemy should be scrapped as soon as possible,' he said. Danish report here:see Milliband merely said from the UK that the decision to ban Wilders from UK territory was taken 'due to internal security considerations'. see Wilders had been invited by a member of the British House of Lords to show his movie Fitna in a parliamentary committee meeting - similar to the way he had been invited for this purpose by a parliamentary group in Israel as iwell as in New York city recently. (see video above) Verhagen said it was 'deeply sad' that a Dutch parliamentarian would ever be refused access to another EU country. The cabinet has asked Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin to negotiate about this matter further with his UK counterpart. see Dutch intelligence deeply concerned about radical Islam Wilders does not stand alone in issuing his warnings: his own government's security service also is deeply concerned. However their advice seems to be mostly discarded by the present Dutch cabinet, which prefers to travel around Islamic countries apologising for any trouble which Wilders may be causing for them. A report issued by the Dutch intelligence service on Dec 23 2004 entitled "From Dawa to Jihad', already warned a full five years ago that The Netherlands harboured at least 50,000 very active islamic radicals. Prepared by the Dutch general intelligence service (AIVD), it describes radical Islam and examines how to meet its threat to Dutch society. There are some 50,000 radicals among the close to one million Dutch Muslims who are producing a far greater number of children than do the indigenous Dutch. The Netherlands has a total of only 17-million people. This report warns that since September 11, 2001, the growth of radical Islamic groups, polarization between Muslims and the surrounding society, limitations in the process of integration, and Islamist terrorism have increased in The Netherlands.And they warn that the capability of Dutch society to resist the threat of radical Islam is considered low -- though recently a greater desire has become apparent among the Dutch population to become more resistant. A similar lack of understanding of the dangers from within its own ranks also is shown by the Dutch Muslim community itself. Its own self-styled 'moderate' organizations and individuals are not able, or willing, to counterbalance the radical forces. Saudis And an earlier AIVD report, which dealt with Saudi influences in The Netherlands, mentioned a number of mosque organizations that originated from Saudi missions and financing. The Amsterdam Tawheed mosque, which in the past has put extreme anti-Semitic statements on its website, is linked financially, organizationally, and personally with the Saudi Al Haramain Foundation. Several other Dutch mosques are also supported financially by Saudi charities. The Dawa report places the blame for the origins of the entire radical islamic problem squarely on the deeply-rooted ideology of fierce opposition to the Western way of life - which is based upon the Q'uran's dictates, as Wilders has also been pointing out in his film Fitna. This report also does not claim that the problem of radical Islam would disappear if there were peace between Israelis and Palestinians, either. In fact, Israel and Jews are not even mentioned in the report. source: "Van dawa tot jihad. De diverse dreigingen van de radicale islam tegen de democratische rechtsorde," Ministerie van Binnenlandse Zaken en Koninkrijksrelaties, 2004 [Dutch]. (Hereafter "the Dawa Report.") see