UK Refuses Dutch MP Geert Wilders Entry

(RNW) – The British government has refused entry to Geert Wilders, the leader of the populist Freedom Party. The British authorities said beforehand that Geert Wilders would not be allowed to enter the country, but the MP decided to board a flight to London anyway. At the airport, he was detained by Customs officials who advised he would have to return to the Netherlands immediately.

Speaking to Reuters from the airport, Mr Wilders said

“I am in a detention centre at Heathrow … I am detained. They took my passport. I will not be allowed to enter the country. They will send me back within a few hours.”

Mr Wilders, who is about to stand trial in The Netherlands for inciting hatred towards Muslims, received a letter from the British Government banning him from entering the United Kingdom.

The British government has barred him from entering the country on the grounds that his radical views on Islam “would threaten community harmony and therefore public security”.

Geert Wilders published the letter on his website and responded on his website, to

“Great Britain is sacrificing freedom of speech. You would expect something like this to happen in countries like Saudi Arabia, but not in Great Britain. This cowardly act by the British government is a disgrace. I was invited by a British member of parliament.”

Extremism

In a statement, the British Home Office (interior ministry) said it intends to

“stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country.”

(Times Online) –  The far-right Dutch politician Geert Wilders was turned away from Heathrow today after testing the Home Secretary’s ban on him entering the country.

Immigration officials denied the Dutch MP entry to the country after the Government decided he should not be allowed to attend a screening of his controversial anti-Islamist film tonight.

On his flight to London, he told The Times that the British Government was “the biggest bunch of cowards in Europe”.
 

(Spiegel) – Wilders is depriving himself of a personal life with his obsessive hatred of Islam. His bodyguards move him to a different location every night. He sees his wife once every week or two. In his windowless office in the Dutch parliament building in The Hague, the Binnenhof, he smiles derisively as he shows films depicting his image, underscored with the rattle of machine guns and the snarling voice of a hate-mongering imam calling for his death.