Geert Wilders, the champion of ‘free speech’, wants to ban the Koran in Holland [View all]
A mass shooting tragedy may have been averted late on Sunday, when two gunmen were killed in Garland, Tex., outside an exhibition for drawings of the prophet Muhammad. The two men apparently had hoped to kill attendees, but after they shot an unarmed security guard, police officers returned fire.
In an e-mail to The Washington Post, Pamela Geller, an anti-Islam activist who organized the event, blamed "Islamic jihadis" who were "determined to suppress our freedom of speech violently." That sentiment was echoed on Twitter by another high-profile, if seemingly out-of-place, guest: the Dutch politician Geert Wilders.
It may seem odd that a Dutch politician was attending an event in Texas, but Wilders has long been an ally of Geller. As far back as 2010, he was attending rallies organized by the native New Yorker against a proposed Muslim community center near the site of the World Trade Center. Along with Geller, he was one of the organizers of Sunday's event and had presented a check to one attendee for his drawing of Muhammad.
Yet while the presence of Wilders -- an elected member of the Dutch parliament and the leader of the fourth-largest party in the Netherlands -- may seem like a legitimizing factor for a clearly controversial event, Wilders's involvement is more complicated than that. For one thing, the Dutch MP might be standing up for free speech in Texas, but in his native Netherlands, he has repeatedly called for the Koran to be banned.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/05/04/geert-wilders-the-champion-of-free-speech-in-texas-wants-to-ban-the-koran-in-holland/
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