Denmark’s governing Liberal Party Foreign Policy Spokesman Søren Pind has entered the debate concerning a decision by Britain to ban the entry of the populist Dutch politician Geert Wilders because of his extreme views about Islam.

“Unless you’re a terrorist or something like that, you of course should be able to travel freely within the European Union. That’s the whole idea behind European rights and freedoms,” says Pind.

Geert Wilders, who is the leader of the populist Party for Freedom in the Netherlands, is best-known abroad for his film ‘Fitna’ which compares Islam with terrorism and which has caused indignation across the world. The European Parliament has banned the film being shown in the EP.

Wilders was originally invited to the United Kingdom by a peer of the House of Lords to show his film Fitna and take part in a discussion afterwards.

EU rules
Under EU rules, Britain is entitled to deny Wilders entry into the country if he is considered to be a danger to public order.

But Pind says that while it is acceptable to deny large groups of Nazis, squatters and hooligans entry into a country – banning an elected politician from another EU country endangers basic freedoms.

“This case sounds all the alarm bells. When you subject an unimportant Dutch MP to this sort of treatment it shows just how far the authorities are willing to go to put the brakes on his freedoms. That is not gratifying,” Pind says.

Freedoms
“This is an elected politician who has a certain view about an ideology. Some see him as being drastic, but he doesn’t affect the groups that are a danger to public order. This case infringes on our view of freedom,” Pind says.

Asked whether the same situation could arise in Denmark, Pind said he hoped it could not.

“But when you look at what the (Danish) foreign ministry did up to World War II – on the one hand in refusing Jews who wanted to come to Denmark and on the other in connection with editing newspaper articles, you see that when systems are under pressure, they do strange things,” Pind said.

“Here it is important to realise that Europe is close to a war between philosophies, and authorities and politicians have a duty to act in keeping with this. Not to act in a cowardly and subjugated fashion,” he adds.

Asked whether Britain had acted in a cowardly fashion, Pind said: “You certainly have to be careful not to give the impression that you are being cowardly – as that is as dangerous as actually being a coward.”

Pind went on to draw parallels between British Prime Ministers Neville Chamberlain and Winston Churchill and their differing attitudes to Adolf Hitler.

“I think every politician would like to see himself as Churchill rather than Chamberlain. I am in no doubt that in the next 30 years we will be making the choices that these two men made,” Pind said referring to Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement and Churchill’s policy of war.

“This case affects all of Europe. You can think what you like of the discussion that Wilders has raised, but the essence is that a ban on his entry to the United Kingdom is basically about freedom of speech, which we (in Denmark) also saw infringed upon during the Mohammed crisis. This is a case where we have to choose darkness or light, and you have to choose light,” Pind says.