Geert Wilders: I Won’t Stop Warning the West About Islam
By Matthew Vadum
After two Muslim lawmakers tried to block world-renowned activist Geert Wilders from entering the country, he defiantly vowed his warnings about the existential threat Islam poses to Western civilization would never cease.
“I know one thing,” Wilders told the audience April 29 at a Capitol Hill reception co-sponsored by Reps. Steve King (R-Iowa) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas).
“They are very ineffective because I’m here,” he said to laughter and applause.
“It’s really risky to tell the truth about Islam,” said Wilders who has had round-the-clock bodyguards protecting him for more than a decade.
A frightening reminder of just how risky telling the truth about Islam can be was delivered Sunday to Wilders and 300 attendees at an art competition featuring works depicting the Muslim prophet Muhammad.
Depicting the founder of Islam in any medium is strictly forbidden and deemed blasphemous in Islam.
Muslims have a history of killing and maiming those who commit what their religion deems to be blasphemy, especially when it comes to the founder of their faith.
A few days after the Washington speech, two AK 47-wielding would-be assassins were gunned down by police after they opened fire outside the sold-out “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Cartoon Contest,” in Garland, Texas, northeast of Dallas. The dead men, since identified as Elton Simpson, 30, and Nadir Hamid Soofi, 34, of Phoenix, Ariz., were both mosque-attending Muslims.
The contest was organized by the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), a group founded by activist and “Atlas Shrugs” blogger Pamela Geller, and by Jihad Watch, a website run by author Robert Spencer that is affiliated with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, which publishes FrontPage. Wilders, Geller, and Spencer attended the event. Wilders delivered the keynote address.
