Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, March 24, 2014

Right-Wing Dutch Politician Geert Wilders May Face Legal Action After Promising ‘Fewer' Moroccans In The Netherlands

A conservative Dutch politician is being sued following a party meeting in which he told supporters he would ensure there were ‘fewer’ Moroccans in the Netherlands, according to Reuters.

Geert Wilders was speaking before supporters of the right-wing Freedom Party (PVV) on Wednesday when he asked the crowd whether they wanted the Netherlands to have “more or fewer” Moroccans.

“Fewer! Fewer! Fewer!” the crowd chanted back, before applauding.

“Good, I’ll take care of that,” Wilders said, according to the International Business Times.

Wilders’ comments have resulted in legal action by the Grouping of Dutch-Moroccans Foundation (SMN), the largest organization of Dutch-Moroccan representatives in the Netherlands.

“Today we are meeting police where we’ll file a discrimination-based complaint against Wilders,” said SMN coordinator Habib el-Kaddouri, according to the IB Times.

Wilders also faces charges of discrimination from the Association for Dutch Moroccans, an organization that represents 368,000 Dutch people of Moroccan origin. The association’s chairperson, Ahmed Charifi, said Wilders’ comments violate the law because they target a specific group of people.

“This has a huge impact on the community, and I hope the judge will see that,” said Charifi, according to Reuters. “[Wilders] crossed a line and to be honest it’s a bit frightening."

“It raises images of a man in the 1930s with a moustache in front of a microphone,” Charifi continued, comparing Wilder to a pre-World War II Adolf Hitler.

Al Jazeera reports that Wilders later defended his remarks as falling under freedom of speech, saying that “we have said nothing we’re not allowed to” and that his comments were “only referring to Moroccan criminals.”

Wilders made the inflammatory comments on Wednesday night during a local election night victory party for the PVV. The PVV had performed well in the municipal elections, narrowly losing the top spot to the liberal-leaning D66 party.

Wilders’ comments were decried by Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who said the comments “left a foul taste in my mouth.”

“All those people in the country who want to make a positive contribution, I do not care where they come from,” said Rutte, according to Reuters. “All that matters is their future.”

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com/
Author: The Huffington Post  | by  Stephen Calabria

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