By Wikipedia AMSTERDAM — An Amsterdam court will reconsider dismissing the hate speech trial of one of the Netherland's most popular leaders, an anti-immigrant…
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Geert Wilders (born 6 September 1963) is a Dutch politician and leader of the Party for Freedom, a political party in The Netherlands. Born in the city of Venlo, raised as a Roman Catholic and having left the Church at his coming of age, Wilders attributes his politics to his support for what he calls 'Judeo-Christian values'. He formed many of his political views on his travels to Israel, as well as the neighbouring Arab countries. His early job at the Dutch social insurance agency propelled him into politics, where he worked as a speechwriter for the conservative-liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy. In 1996, he moved to the city of Utrecht, where he was elected to the city council and later to the House of Representatives of the Netherlands. Citing irreconcilable differences over the party's position on Turkish accession to the European Union, Wilders left the People's Party in 2004 to form his own party, the Party for Freedom. Since then, he has been outspoken on a number of issues such as immigration, freedom of speech, and Islam. He has pleaded, for instance, for a hard line against what he called the "street terror" exerted by minorities in Dutch cities. . His controversial 2008 film about Islam in the Netherlands, Fitna, has received international attention. On 21 January 2009, the Amsterdam Court of Appeal ordered his prosecution for what it said was "the incitement to hatred and discrimination". Wilders was also controversially banned from entering the United Kingdom between 12 February 2009 and 13 October 2009, with the Home Office viewing his presence as a "threat to one of the fundamental interests of society". The ban was overturned after Wilders appealed. He visited the UK on October 16, 2009, and again in March 2010, to show his film. In March 2010 was announced that a documentary film about Geert Wilders was due to be released in the United States; Wilders himself was writing a book and producing a sequel to his film, both to be released after the parliamentary elections in The Netherlands in June 2010.
