Politicians are no judges

Politicians are not the ones to order our justice system to prosecute people and organizations. But in The Netherlands this is more and more the case. Politicians wanted Martijn Association to be banned and they got what they wanted. They wanted some motorcycle-clubs banned and they right now are getting what they want. Now they want a radical imam to be prosecuted. The justice department told that what he said was within the law, but politicians don't agree and you will see: there will be a court-case. Politicians think about votes, that is unfortunately in most cases their main priority. That is the mean reason why our justice system and our political system must be separated as much as possible.

Imam Fawaz Jneid, living in The Netherlands since 1992 [1], is believed to has said that the mayor of Rotterdam, Ahmed Aboutaleb, who was born in Morocco [2], is an apostasy. Aboutaleb still is a Muslim though, but in they eyes of Jneid he is too liberal to be called a Muslim anymore. This, - if the translations we are given are correct; it would not be the first time imams talking in Arabic are not translated correctly - calling someone an apostasy is a death threat people say, because Muslims are told to think this way. This because it is written in the Quran. But in court, a judge must know one hundred percent sure if someone says: 'kill this person.' You can call someone an apostasy while not wanting people to kill him. Our Minister of Justice Ferdinand Grapperhaus now wants to change the law so that our freedom of speech will be reduced. Other politicians say: we already have article 137d and we can convict the imam with this article. Article 137d forbids hate speech. Politician Geert Wilders was convicted in December 2016 for hate speech to a group, article 137c. [3]

Theo Hiddema, a famous dutch lawyer and also politician of the party Forum for Democracy wants the imam to be convicted and afterwards to be send away out of our country. This year Hiddema said that in contrast of Geert Wilders' PVV: Forum for Democracy will not deport people. The wish for deportation is already here. I'm against, as I wrote before [4], deportation of criminals when they are dutch citizens, but when they were born in another country or if they have two nationalities. A lot of people automatically have two nationalities even if they never visited their other 'motherland'! It would mean they, and others not, have to live with a sword of Damocles above their heads. I for instance have a schizophrenic brother who repeatedly came in conflict with the law. Should he be an immigrant, he could as an extra punishment be send away to another country? Away from his family living here?

Forum for Democracy by the way wants tougher prison sentences. For serious violent crimes this party is in favor of a three-strikes-and-you're-out-law, meaning life in prison. And they want tougher sentences for violent crimes and for sex crimes. [5]

We must be careful not to let politicians get to close to our justice system. We must be careful not to throw away our freedom of speech. If you want to say: 'I don't mind if this person would be killed,' I even say it's your freedom to do so. In my view the freedom of speech is unlimited [6]. Only saying: 'go and kill this person,' should be a crime. That is not an opinion anymore and too dangerous to tolerate. So only if you can prove for 100% that imam Fawaz Jneid did a call to attack or to murder Aboutaleb, then you can convict him. So you have to prove that calling Aboutaleb an apostasy means: beat him up or kill him. The only way to do so is that this imam (repeatedly) said before: 'always kill all apostasies.' Saying, even once: 'kill all apostasies,' is a crime though. Saying: 'kill all pedophiles,' is a crime too by the way. You read it many times on social media though...

If it comes to a court case, I would not recommend Theo Hiddema as his lawyer. A good lawyer has, I believe, many things to say to make clear to a judge that his client should not be convicted. But due to the current climate, I'm afraid he will loose this case: too much pressure on the judges. Or, even worse, behind the scenes they find the judge that no matter what will convict Jneid.

Notes
[1] nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fawaz_Jneid
[2] nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Aboutaleb
[3] nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Wilders
[4] Article 'Nederlandse Marokkanen als tweederangs burgers' by Marthijn Uittenbogaard; The Post Online; 22 March 2014 politiek.tpo.nl/2014/03/22/nederlandse-marokkanen-als-tweederangs-burgers/ [5] forumvoordemocratie.nl/standpunten/veiligheid-justitie
[6] Text about the freedom of speech I wrote: 'Stichting voor Vrijheid van Meningsuiting en Meningsvorming'; 25 March 2016 svvmblog.wordpress.com/