Today, September 2nd, is a historic day. It is the first time ever that an Islamic cleric will have to stand trial for issuing an assassination fatwa.
In a few weeks, it will be 20 years since policemen wearing bulletproof vests and carrying machine guns arrived at my home. They gave me ten minutes to pack, pushed me into an armoured car and drove me off to an unknown destination. The evening of November 4, 2004, was the last time that my wife and I were in our house. Since that moment, we have been forced to live in various safe houses. We have lost our freedom and privacy. Everywhere I go, I am constantly surrounded by bodyguards.
The same thing happened on that ominous evening to my colleague, fellow member of the Dutch Parliament, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a fugitive from Islamic Somalia. We had both been fierce critics of Islam and the Islamization of our country, the Netherlands. As a result of this, Islamic death threats or fatwas ordering the Islamic faithful to kill us had been issued.
Since then, Ayaan has left Dutch politics and emigrated to the United States. I stayed and founded my own party, the Party for Freedom (PVV), which is currently the largest party in the Netherlands and the largest party in the ruling government coalition.
I have always been a firm defender of freedom of speech. It is the bedrock of a free society and a functioning democracy. I will never be silenced. Fatwas, death threats, being on the death list of the Taliban and ISIS, nothing will ever stop me from telling the inconvenient truth.
I realize, however, that the fatwas and death threats against me – rare is the day that I do not receive one in my mailbox – are not just intended to silence me, but also to intimidate everyone else not to be as ‘reckless’ as me in voicing their opinion.
Fatwas are a direct assault on freedom of speech. The Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini has never been taken to court for his 1989 fatwa condemning the British author Salman Rushdie to death, but he should have been.
Next week Monday September 2, a historic trial will be held in the Amsterdam/Schiphol high security court.
Pakistani mullah and leader of TLI party @DrJalaliTLY and @Saad_RizviTLP leader of the Pakistani TLP-party, are both prosecuted in The Netherlands and will have to stand… pic.twitter.com/mkjYCdT12L
— Geert Wilders (@geertwilderspvv) August 26, 2024
Today, in Amsterdam, the court case begins against two Pakistani citizens, Muhammed Ashraf Asif Jalali (55) and Saad Hussain Rizvi (29). Although the proceedings will be held in their absence, the trial is hugely significant. Not just for me, the victim, but also for the defence of the freedom of speech of every Dutchman and citizen of the free West.
In May 2015, I was present at a cartoon contest in Garland, Texas, where cartoons of the Islamic prophet Muhammed were judged. Islam forbids the depiction of its prophet, but there is no reason why this prohibition should apply to non-Muslims.
The contest in Garland was won by the American illustrator Bosch Fawstin, a former Muslim, for a picture of Muhammed saying “You can’t draw me!” and the artist replying “That’s why I draw you.” As it happened, two Islamic terrorists attacked the Garland cartoon exhibition with semi-automatic rifles and handguns but were shot by police officers before they could cause much havoc, apart from wounding a guard.
In 2018, after I had announced my intention to invite Mr Fawstin over to The Hague and organise a similar contest there, Imam Djalali issued a fatwa against me, calling on his followers to kill me and promising a reward in the afterlife. Due to the security risks, I had no option but to cancel the Dutch cartoon contest. Some “believers” take these fatwas very seriously, as was illustrated when Junaid Iqbal, a 26-year-old Pakistani, was arrested in The Hague in August 2018 for plotting to “send the dog Wilders to hell.” In February 2021, the court in The Hague sentenced Mr. Iqbal to 10 years in prison for preparing a terrorist attack on me.
In September last year, the court in The Hague also sentenced another Pakistani citizen, 37-year-old Khalid Latif, a former captain of the Pakistani national cricket team, to 12 years in prison for offering an amount equivalent to $23,500 for murdering me. “It is very likely that someone anywhere in the world would feel compelled to act on this call,” the court stated. Mr Latif was not present during the trial and did not respond to the conviction, but will now no longer be able to travel to countries which have an extradition treaty with the Netherlands.
Netherlands to Create ‘Strictest Migration System Ever’ as Populist Geert Wilders Forms Government https://t.co/2hsjri3f3x
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) May 18, 2024
Along with Imam Jalali, Saad Hussain Rizvi will also stand trial in Amsterdam today. He is the leader of the political party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). During a press conference in Karachi in 2018, he too called for my assassination.
The TLP has a record of supporting murder attacks outside Pakistan. Last May, Spain arrested 14 Pakistani immigrants linked to the TLP. They had called on social networks with a following of almost 60,000 people to cut off the head of Salman Rushdie during his visit to Madrid. Instead of taking the 14 Pakistanis to court, the Socialist authorities in Spain expelled them to Pakistan.
In Pakistan itself, the TLP leadership was arrested in November 2018, on charges of sedition and terrorism for instigating violent protests over the acquittal of Asia Bibi, a Pakistani Catholic who was sentenced to death in 2010 for blasphemy but eventually acquitted. In April 2021, the TLP was outlawed as a terrorist group, but this decision was reversed in November 2021.
Pakistan’s permissive approach towards Islamic terrorist clerics, groups and parties endangers not only the country’s own moderate Muslims and its non-Muslim minority, but encourages extremist Pakistanis to impose their violent ideology in Western countries. It is brave of the Dutch judiciary and government to stand up to them. More countries should follow the Dutch lead in this regard.
Geert Wilders is a Dutch parliamentarian and the leader of the Party for Freedom, the largest party in the Netherlands. He is the author of Marked for Death; Islam’s War Against the West and Me (Regnery).
