Press Release
New Bill Reads: Attack on Islam is Made Easier

Minister Sander Dekker (Judicial Protection, VVD) has proposed a bill to extend certain articles of the law as to speed up the process of banning and dissolving so-called “radical” ideas and “Sharia” parties that wish to implement Sharia. The extreme left and extreme right are also on the list, but everyone that sincerely assesses the situation within the context of the predominately Anti-Islam policy can not conclude anything except that the bill is used to set the judicial foundation to tackle Muslim groups.

Assault, threatening with an attack or propagating violence is already forbidden. However this bill goes even further. Groups that do not commit or glorify violence are also considered as a threat to the state. Only, because they, for example reject democratic principles or have an “undemocratic” stance. In addition, groups that are active within the boundaries of the law and do not commit illegal acts, can be convicted and dissolved before they even actually commit these acts. Basically, convicted of an act before the act ever actually took place.

The interpretation of what contradicts “public order” was already vague and becomes even more so by defining the term “public order” as a catch-all phrase; meaning that the definition of public order can change according to time and place. The term is also being stretched out so that things that did not go against public order before are deemed “undesirable” now. Things like incitement of hatred or discrimination or merely the suspicion that something is against the public order. Each one of these are relative terms that can be abused in a hardened anti-Islam policy. Moreover, this bill will make it easier for the public attorney’s office to ban and dissolve such organizations based on assumptions instead of irrefutable evidence.

This is why the minister deemed it necessary to propose in the detailed explanatory memorandum of the bill that it is a toolbox to protect the democratic and constitutional attained rights, not to destroy them. The need to bring this “nuance” to it is due to the fact that this bill directly contradicts the foundations upon which the liberal-democratic thought (which they say they are defending) is built. In other words, we should abolish freedom to maintain it. Or to put it in the words of the minister: “we can not afford to be tolerant against intolerance.” So we ourselves become intolerant.

In the detailed explanatory, the minister explains this contradiction and uses the so-called democratic paradox. He writes, “The pluralism of behaviors and proselytized paradigms, which is an essential character of a democratic constitutional state, also enables that these fundamental rights and freedoms could be potentially abused and utilized for the realization of antidemocratic goals. This tension, also known as the democratic paradox...” Thus, a democratic constitutional state offers each individual fundamental rights and freedoms to have behaviors and thoughts other than the democratic paradigm, but if one possesses behaviors and thoughts that are not democratic and wishes to proselytizes them, it is not allowed and a ban might ensue. Is this the definition of “freedom”?

And indeed, using the democratic paradox confirms this, because with a paradox there are two statements that seem contradicting at first hand while they aren’t in reality. By using the argument of the “democratic paradox”, i.e. abolish freedom to maintain it, they create the illusion that there is no actual contradiction between the two. This is nothing but a deception. This is like a pacifist who is absolutely against war and violence, calls to wage war and use violence to achieve his pacifist goals and continues to say that his call might seem contradictory but in reality, is not. This is not a paradox, but an irreconcilable contradiction of two statements. Just like black and white, good and evil, day and night, opposites that are irreconcilable. Worst still, it is justified using these misleading and unfair rationalizations that set the foundation for oppressive legislation.

The question that logically arises is; how convinced are they of the soundness of the democratic principles they say they protect but yet violate at the same time? Or are we not allowed to think about or ask this either? Is this not simply following the road to oppression and a sign of the bankruptcy of the liberal-democratic paradigm?

This way of thinking has become typical for the policy that is being implemented against the Muslim community for some time now in The Netherlands. The only principle that is in inviolable and impossible to make concessions with are Islam and the abuse of Islam in The Netherlands must be tackled.

Okay Pala
Media Representative of Hizb ut Tahrir
in The Netherlands