Free Republic

The wartime commander of Bosnian Croat forces, Slobodan Praljak, has died after he drank a liquid he said was poison seconds after UN judges turned down his appeal against a 20-year sentence for war crimes against Bosnian Muslims, a court spokesman confirms. Praljak, 72, tilted back his head and took a swig from a bottle shortly after appeals judges confirmed his sentence for involvement in a campaign to drive Muslims out of a would-be Bosnian Croat ministate in Bosnia in the early 1990s. "I just drank poison," he said. "I am not a war criminal. I oppose this conviction."

Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch Freedom Party (PVV), called for the total "de-Islamification" in a controversial manifesto posted online. The far-right MP, who has previously compared the Koran to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, also vowed to put an end to immigration from Islamic countries. He would also close all Islamic schools and asylum centres, and ban Muslim women from wearing the headscarf in public, if elected prime minister next year.Mr Wilders unveiled the manifesto ahead of the Netherlands' parliamentarian elections in March. The PVV currently leads the pack in almost every opinion poll amid growing anger at the Dutch...

The eurozone can in theory still be saved, if two sets of conditions are fulfilled; if the leaders of Germany, Austria, Finland, and the Netherlands accept fiscal union and a common pooling of debt, and can persuade their parliaments and courts to ratify such a revolution. If the Germanic bloc agrees to tear up the mandate of the European Central Bank, letting it switch from inflation-targeting to job-targeting ("Unemployment must not exceed 10pc in two or more EMU states, or some such formula), effectively instructing the ECB to embark on Fed-style stimulus for three to five years. This might allow...

Note, the following two sources "The Guardian" & "Crimson," are radical left-wingers, I am just quoting them for information, the report on the Euro-anti-Islamic atmosphere. Europe Legitimizes Islamophobia Harvard Crimson - Eli B Martin - 4 May 2010 Geert Wilders, is the current favorite to end up as prime minister in a coalition government. However, Wilders has labeled Islam “retarded” and has called to ban the Koran. These dismaying steps are part of an eruption of Islamophobia throughout Europe. [...] open vilification of Islam has become standard in many mainstream parties. The recent Swiss referendum on the building of minarets,...

What happened to the Dutch? The answer is, not much since the 1600s. A very small country, the Netherlands has tried very hard to accommodate its larger and more powerful neighbors. My personal family experience is with the NSB. The NSB is short for the National Socialist Bond, a party that admired the German Nazis and did much to run the Netherlands during World War 2. Thanks to immigration for its former colonies in Asia and Morocco, the Dutch are busy accommodating its Muslin population, much as it did its Nazi neighbors in earlier times. We think of the Netherlands...

Back in April of 2008 a district court in The Hague ruled that anti-Islamic European politician Geert Wilders did not break the law by comparing Islam with Fascism and calling the Koran the Islamic version of Hitler's Mein Kampf.

Criminalizing Criticism of Islam By ELIZABETH SAMSON FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE September 10, 2008 There are strange happenings in the world of international jurisprudence that do not bode well for the future of free speech. In an unprecedented case, a Jordanian court is prosecuting 12 Europeans in an extraterritorial attempt to silence the debate on radical Islam. The prosecutor general in Amman charged the 12 with blasphemy, demeaning Islam and Muslim feelings, and slandering and insulting the prophet Muhammad in violation of the Jordanian Penal Code. The charges are especially unusual because the alleged violations were not committed...

Europe's fear of Muslims increaseshttp://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/stories/2007/10/20/dutch_1021.htmlBy SHELLEY EMLINGThe Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 10/21/07 Amsterdam, the Netherlands — Ehsan Jami sees himself as the legendary Dutch boy who used his finger to plug a leaking dike.Jami, a Dutch politician, is trying to prevent a flood of what he views as intolerant Muslim immigrants threatening to overrun the Netherlands and all of Europe. AP(ENLARGE) Muslim women chat at a market in downtown Amsterdam. 'I've lived here for 40 years and I still don't feel welcome,' said Atel Alireza, a taxi driver from Turkey. AP(ENLARGE)An Islamist killed filmmaker Theo van Gogh after his movie...

Yesterday’s municipal elections in the Netherlands were won by the Left. The Labour Party (PvdA) gained more than 500 town hall seats, an increase of 50 per cent compared with 2002, while the far-left Socialist Party (SP) doubled its number of seats. The Christian-Democrat CDA of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende and his government coalition partner, the free-market Liberal VVD, suffered heavy losses. Yesterday’s result does not bode well for the Right in next year’s general elections. If the result in 2007 is the same as yesterday’s the PvdA will gain 49 of the 150 parliamentary seats, while the CDA...

Many of Europe's governments may be skeptical about America's ambitious ballistic missile defense development program but their publics are not. A new study sponsored by advocates of BMD found that more than two-thirds of Europeans want NATO to deploy such systems to protect them. Some 71 percent of Europeans favor the deployment of a NATO missile defense capability able to protect the continent from attack by missiles bearing weapons of mass destruction, according to a poll that was jointly sponsored by the George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies and Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, the two organizations announced in Rome...

THE HAGUE – Rules for gun ownership will become stricter in August 2006, the Ministry of Justice announced on Wednesday. Beginning next autumn, anyone who wants a weapons permit will have to be a member of a shooting club affiliated with the Koninklijke Nederlandse Schutters Associatie (KNSA). To prevent criminals from learning to shoot in a club, aspiring members must also be licensed by the KNSA. Weapons permits will also become easier to revoke. From next year, committing a crime will be grounds for losing one’s licence, as will ‘moving in criminal circles’. The KNSA will conduct checks of affiliated...

What is happening to Holland that once stood as the shining light of tolerance and religious freedom? A country that the entire world admired for its courageous protection of Jews and other persecuted people during World War II? It would appear that Holland has forgotten its own history. In a series of attempts to discourage immigration from Third World countries, the Dutch have introduced a legislative proposal that would require some potential immigrants to take an examination to prove that they have an understanding of the Dutch language and culture. This applies to individuals who marry a Dutch citizen or...

Netherlands relives largest airborne operation in history Sat Sep 18, 8:45 AM ET EDE, The Netherlands (AFP) - When British veteran Charles Grocett first saw the Ginkelse Heide, a piece of heathland near Arnhem, he was a 18-year-old paratrooper dodging enemy fire...sixty years on he was back to commemorate the failed operation Market Garden, the largest airborne and glider operation in history. "I was dropped here in this same place. It was not good, there were fireballs coming at you because the Germans were waiting for us," he recalled Saturday. More than 50,000 spectators gathered on the heather-covered land to...

AMSTERDAM — Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was given police protection on Monday following the screening of a controversial and "insulting" film about the abuse suffered by women in Islamic societies. The writer of the film, Liberal VVD politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is already under police protection following earlier threats to her life. Van Gogh said despite the shocking content of the film — which casts an accusing eye on the treatment of women in the Islamic faith — no threats were made against him, news agency ANP reported. The English-language film Submission features four abused women in see through...

The announcement of Saddam Hussein's arrest has been warmly welcomed in Dutch political circles. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has sent a congratulatory telegram to US President George W. Bush. New Foreign Minister Ben Bot said the former leader of Iraq should be tried in his own country, arguing that a trial elsewhere, such as the International Court of Justice in The Hague, would send the wrong signal to the Iraqi people. The parliamentary leader of the Christian Democrats described the arrest as the best news this year. His Conservative opposite number called on the international community to work together...

Text of report by Iraqi Shi'i group's Iran-based radio station Voice of the Mujahidin on 23 November An Iraqi police officer has revealed that the Iraqi police arrested a person suspected to be an Al-Qa'idah member in the city of Al-Samawah, where he was planning to detonate a bomb against Dutch forces stationed in the area. This is the first arrest of a person suspected to be a member of Al-Qa'idah in Al-Samawah, where a Japanese military team is currently present Source: Voice of the Mujahidin, in Arabic 0732 gmt 23 Nov 03

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - The Netherlands will send 1,100 peacekeepers to southern Iraq to join the British-led multinational stabilization force, the Dutch government said. The Cabinet decided Friday to contribute a battalion of marines under a U.N. Security Council resolution, according to a Foreign Ministry statement posted on its Web site. The Dutch forces will be stationed in the sparsely populated, southern al-Muthanna region for at least six months and possibly a year. No departure date was set, but Defense Minister Henk Kamp said the forces first may go to Kuwait in August for an acclimatization period. The operation, estimated...

td align="left" valign="top">Islamofascism Rising in HollandBy Alexis AmoryFrontPageMagazine.com | March 6, 2003 In an online poll last year asking voters to give their opinions on which would be the first European country to adopt sharia law, France seemed like a shoo-in. After all, it is within 35 years of having Muslim majority – given the respective birthrates of Muslims and the indigenous population – and has a problem with both legal and illegal immigration from Muslim countries. However, Holland galloped into first place, demonstrating an impressive prescience among the respondents. Long the ne plus ultra of hashish-induced fuzzy thinking, Holland’s drug...

If the growing popularity of an extreme right-wing party bewildered and frightened the Dutch, the assassination of its leader, Tim Fortuyn, earlier this week appears to have numbed their faculties. His spectacular success in the local elections last March, and the even more striking success that opinion polls predicted for him in the general election scheduled for May 15, had rattled the political establishment and large sections of public opinion. They simply could not understand how the xenophobic outpourings of Fortuyn could strike a chord in a country which is envied for its prosperity, welfare measures, political stability, progressive laws,...