By Soeren Kern
"I live in a government safe house. I wear a bulletproof jacket. I have not walked the streets ... in more than seven years. [I am] imprisoned in my own country for the mere fact that I have spoken out against the enemies of the West." — Geert Wilders, MP, Netherlands
An unidentified assailant wielding a handgun fired a shot at
Hedegaard, but fled on foot after the bullet missed its intended victim
and the gun subsequently jammed.
According to Danish media,
the gunman, in a postal service uniform, rang the doorbell of
Hedegaard's apartment building on the pretext of delivering a package.
When Hedegaard opened the front door, the man pulled out a gun and fired
a shot, narrowly missing Hedegaard's head.
Danish police say they are searching for the suspect, whom they
describe as "a man of a different ethnic background than Danish." He is
believed to be in his 20s and has a "Middle Eastern appearance."
Speculation is that the assailant is a Muslim because of critical
statements that Hedegaard has made regarding Islam.
Hedegaard is the president of the Danish Free Press Society,
a watchdog group that often warns that free speech is under threat from
radical Islam. Hedegaard also co-edits a weekly online newspaper called
Dispatch International,
which covers stories in Danish, English and Swedish about a variety of
topics, including content that is critical of radical Islam.
Hedegaard's partner, Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist, says the
attack was a brazen attempt to silence a courageous free-speech warrior,
one who has not been afraid to challenge official myths about the
impact of multiculturalism and Muslim mass immigration on European
society.
As if to prove Carlqvist's point, Danish officialdom has uniformly
linked the attack on Hedegaard with the exercise of free speech in the
country.
Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt,
a Social Democrat, said: "An attack on Lars Hedegaard is a heinous act
which I condemn in the strongest terms. It is even worse if the attack
is rooted in an attempt to prevent Lars Hedegaard to use his freedom of
expression."
Former Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen,
who leads the center-right Liberal Party, said the attack was a
"cowardly and cruel act." He added: "If this action is rooted in
preventing Lars Hedegaard from using his freedom of speech, we are
witnessing an attack on all Danes."
The former leader of the conservative Danish People's Party, Pia Kjærsgaard,
who has long warned about the negative effects of multiculturalism and
runaway immigration, said it is "un-Danish" if people cannot give their
opinions without risking their lives. She added: "It is incomprehensible
and shocking if the motive is political. If this is the case, it shows
that it is dangerous to make use of our constitutional freedom of
expression.
The leader of the left wing Socialist People's Party, Annette Vilhelmsen,
called the incident "totally unacceptable." She said: "I probably do
not agree with Lars Hedegaard on very much. But in Denmark we have
freedom of speech. Political assassinations affect not just real people,
they hit our democracy and our freedom of thinking."
Hedegaard has been at the vanguard of a decade-long effort to fight
back against restrictions to free speech in Europe, especially speech
that is critical of Islam.
In April 2012, Hedegaard was acquitted by the Danish Supreme Court on charges of "hate speech" for comments he made about Islam.
Hedegaard's legal problems began in December 2009, when he said in a
taped interview that there was a high incidence of child rape and
domestic violence in areas dominated by Muslim culture. Although
Hedegaard insisted that he did not intend to accuse all Muslims or even
the majority of Muslims of such crimes, the Danish public prosecutor's
office declared that Hedegaard was guilty of violating Article 266b of
the Danish penal code, a catch-all provision that is often used to
enforce politically correct speech codes.
In January 2011, a Danish lower court acquitted Hedegaard of any
wrongdoing. But public prosecutors appealed that verdict and in May
2011, a Danish superior court found Hedegaard guilty of hate speech in
accordance with Article 266b because he "ought to have known" that his
statements regarding family rape in Muslim families were intended for
public dissemination.
The case eventually made its way to the Danish Supreme Court. In a ruling dated April 20, 2012,
the court ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove that Hedegaard
was aware that his statements would be published. Although Hedegaard
was thus acquitted, the court also made a special point of ruling that
the substance of his statements, namely the public criticism of Islam,
is a violation of Article 266b.
As a result, although Hedegaard was cleared of wrongdoing, the
Supreme Court affirmed the legal restrictions on free speech in Denmark.
To be sure, Hedegaard is not the only free speech advocate in Europe
who has become a target for assassins. The attempt to assassinate him
shows that Europeans (in Denmark and elsewhere) who are determined to
exercise their right to free speech, especially concerning Islam,
continue to face considerable personal risks.
In February 2008, the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET)
arrested three Muslims (two Tunisians and one Moroccan-born Dane) who
were charged with planning to murder the Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard because he created a controversial cartoon of the Islamic prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb in his turban.
After the plot was foiled, Westergaard's house was fitted with steel
doors, a panic room, reinforced glass and surveillance cameras.
Despite the increased security measures, however, in January 2010 a
28-year-old Somali Muslim intruder armed with an axe and a knife entered
Westergaard's house shouting phrases including: "We will get our
revenge!" "Revenge!" and "Blood!" Westergaard, who fled to a panic room ,
was unharmed; the intruder was shot in the hand and knee by police
officers who arrived on the scene.
In Sweden, the artist Lars Vilks
has been living under police protection after a drawing he made
depicting Mohammed as a dog led to numerous death threats from radical
Muslims. In May 2010, Muslim protesters assaulted Vilks while he was
giving a lecture about free speech at Uppsala University. A few days
later, Vilks' house in southern Sweden was attacked by arsonists.
In November 2010, the Somali Islamic group Al-Shaabab produced a
video announcing a death threat against Vilks. In December 2010, a
suicide bomber in Stockholm left a message saying that he wanted to kill
Swedish citizens because of their "foolish support for the pig Vilks."
In September 2011, three men were arrested on suspicion of conspiring to
murder Vilks in the city of Gothenburg.
In the Netherlands, police in Amsterdam arrested the spokesperson of the Islamist group Sharia4Holland on charges of making death threats against the leader of the Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders.
Abu Qasim was arrested in May 2012 after a speech he gave in Amsterdam's central Dam Square (video in Dutch here), when he warned that Wilders would be "dealt with" once the Netherlands became an Islamic state.
Qasim also called Wilders "this dog of the Romans" and -- referring to the Dutch filmmaker and Islam critic
who was murdered by a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim in 2004 -- warned that
Wilders should learn lessons from "the case of Theo van Gogh."
In his 2012 book about Islam, "Marked for Death: Islam's War against the West and Me," Wilders describes his life under round-the-clock guard because of death threats by Muslim extremists.
Wilders writes: "I have a panic room in my house where I am supposed
to take refuge if one of the adherents of the 'religion of peace' makes
it past my permanent security detail and into my home. In fact, it's not
really my home at all—I live in a government safe house, heavily
protected and bulletproof. ... I have been surrounded by police guards
and stripped of nearly all personal privacy. ... I am driven every day
from the safe house to my office in the Dutch Parliament building in
armored police cars. ... I wear a bulletproof jacket. ... Always
surrounded by plainclothes police officers, I have not walked the
streets on my own in more than seven years. ... [I am] imprisoned in my
own country for the mere fact that I have spoken out against enemies of
the West."
Wilders continues: "Leading a life like that got me thinking about
some big questions. Western societies guarantee their citizens something
that no other civilizations grant them: privacy. It's one of those
things you tend to take for granted unless you lose it. The importance
of privacy is unique to Western society with its notion of the sovereign
individual. In stark contrast to Western norms, Islam robs people of
their privacy. Islamic societies—including Islamic enclaves in the
West—exert tight social control that is indicative of the totalitarian
character of Islam."
Wilders concludes: "We can still prevail. We begin the struggle by
standing up for our values and telling the truth about Islam. Even when
we are insulted, even when we are harassed and intimidated, even when we
are marked for death just for stating an opinion—we must never be
silenced."
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