Posted on 08/25/2002 6:24:46 AM PDT by knighthawk
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — The new minister for immigration affairs was harshly criticized by his own government after suggesting that immigrants with criminal records should be deported — even if they have Dutch nationality.
The Minister for Alien and Immigration Affairs, Hilbrand Nawijn, said that a well-known Muslim cleric should be forced to leave the country because he spoke out against Dutch principles.
``If he breaks the law, he should be chased down, prosecuted, and sent out of the country,'' Nawijn said in Saturday's edition of the Algemeen Dagblad newspaper. ``That counts for all criminals.''
Nawijn, the former head of the Immigration Service and member of the party of slain populist politician Pim Fortuyn, was referring to the Rotterdam-based imam, Khalid El Moumni.
El Moumni was acquitted in 2001 of allegations that he made derogatory remarks about homosexuals, considered a hate crime in the Netherlands. He had called homosexuality a contagious disease.
Dutch Prime Minister Jan-Peter Balkenende dismissed Nawijn's proposal to deport immigrants of Dutch nationality as ``unconstitutional.''
But the Premier said he wouldn't oppose deporting criminals who don't have passports or permanent residency.
Weekend newspapers were filled with reactions from politicians in and out of Nawijn's party who distanced themselves from his remarks.
Fortuyn ran on an anti-immigration platform in which he called Islam a ``backward, medieval religion'' and Nawijn was given his position with an eye to implementing some of Fortuyn's ideas on immigration.
Last week, he said he hopes to refuse entry to 80 percent of all new immigrants and wants to turn army barracks into makeshift detention centers for asylum seekers.
Although it will be impossible to send back the criminal children of original immigrants, it is possible to deport criminal asylumseekers.
Also El Moumni was cleared of all charges in court for his remarks. The judge said that what El Moumni said was religous freedom, affirming in islam hatred against homosexuals excists.
Now I am not going to get into a flame war with some of you who disagree. I state my opinions on the basis of a background in neuroscience research but frankly have neither the time nor the emotional energy to do battle about this point. I only offer my views because I believe that the imam or anyone else who wishes to offer a negative view of homosexuality (or bacon, or the Washington Redskins, or the Osbournes) has the right to give voice to his views without facing deportation or prosecution for "hate crimes."
What have the Dutch done to themselves!
I'm not sure I'd put anti-homosexual, anti-Christian, anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish, etc. or any other general rhetoric into that category.
I might consider it for calls for terrorist acts, incitement to riot, murder or other violence.
Some Muslim cleric starts calling for Palestinian style, terrorist attacks or jihad and I say he's gone. One way or another. Preferably in a box.
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