BF2S Forums Anti-Islamist politician vows to defy ban by entering Britain

A far-right Dutch politician will attempt to defy a government ban on his entering Britain today, amid a diplomatic row over his right to visit.

Geert Wilders, an anti-Islamist, will fly in to Heathrow to attend a screening of his film Fitna at the House of Lords hosted by the UKIP peer Lord Pearson of Rannoch.

The authorities would have to prevent him physically, he said. “I’ll see what happens at the border. Let them put me in handcuffs.”

The film features verses from the Koran with images of terrorist attacks in New York, London and Madrid and calls on Muslims to remove “hate-preaching” verses from the text. Lord Pearson said that the screening would go ahead with or without Mr Wilders.

The Home Office decision to refuse Mr Wilders entry on account of his views provoked Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch Foreign Affairs Minister, to call David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, to protest at the decision.

“The fact that a Dutch parliamentarian is refused entry to another EU country is highly regrettable,” Mr Verhagen said. He revealed his conversation with Mr Miliband via a posting on his Twitter website.

Mr Wilders, 45, is being denied entry under an EU law that allows member states to turn away individuals from other member states if they are deemed to constitute a threat to public policy, security or health. Since 2005, 270 people have been excluded on suspicion of being a threat to national security or fostering extremism, including 79 “preachers of hate”. Muslims including Lord Ahmed support the Government’s decision to deny Mr Wilders entry. A spokesman for the House of Lords declined to comment on the allegation.

The exact nature of Fitna's release had been uncertain up until its official launch. This was due to concerns of the legality of its content and anticipated acts of terrorism. The Dutch press centre Nieuwspoort offered to release the film, on the condition that Wilders would pay for the increased security required during the press conference and the weeks after it. Wilders declined to do so, citing prohibitive costs.

Having failed to successfully negotiate a transmission of the film with any Dutch television station, Wilders created a website, www.fitnathemovie.com, on March 5, 2008 with the intention of releasing the film. However, this was subsequently suspended (see below).

On March 22, the Dutch Muslim Broadcasting Association (NMO) offered to air the film, on the proviso that it could be previewed for any possible illegal material and that Wilders would take part in a debate with proponents and opponents afterwards. Wilders declined, quoted as saying "No way, NMO."

Wilders released the film on March 27, 2008 on the video website Liveleak.[15] The following day, Liveleak removed the film from their servers after receiving threats which they described as being "of a very serious nature".The film soon appeared on various BitTorrent and video sharing websites.

Liveleak reinstated Fitna on March 30, after security upgrades offering increased protection to its staff had been implemented.Soon after, Wilders withdrew the film[21] to make some minor edits, such as removing the copyrighted Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons and the photograph of Salah Edin, a rapper wrongly identified as Mohammed Bouyeri, in response to lawsuits.Kurt Westergaard, the cartoonist, was pleased with the news and believed the lawsuit would be dropped.
A revised edition, containing a new cartoon in place of the contentious one, and a corrected picture of Bouyeri, was released on Liveleak on April 6.