September 11, 2010: Geert Wilders speaks at the rally attended by 40,000 in New York on September 11 to protest plans to build a mosque close to the site of Ground Zero. The rally was organized by a group called Stop Islamization Of America, which says it is wrong to build a mosque so close to the place where some 3,000 died when Islamic extremists flew two planes into the World Trade Center.
Read this speech.
About Geert Wilders
Wikipedia: Geert Wilders (born September 6, 1963) is a Dutch politician and leader of the Party for Freedom (PVV), the third leading 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 (VVD). 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 the accession of Turkey to the European Union, Wilders left the VVD in 2004 to form his own party, the Party for Freedom. He advocates banning the Qur'an, taxing women who wear the headscarf, ending immigration from Muslim countries, and banning the construction of new mosques. He has also spoken in an international conference. In the international press he was called The Netherlands' "most inflammatory public figure."
Wilders 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 16 October 2009, and again in March 2010, to show his film.
In March 2010, it 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. Wilders' gains toward becoming next Dutch prime minister according to polls in March 2010 have triggered concerns of political violence in the Netherlands or against Dutch nationals, according to the country's National Anti-terrorism Coordinator.
AMERICA SPEAKS!
HISTORIC 9/11 RALLY DRAWS 40,000 - Experience the rally - See the pictures.
