PrintMarch 24, 2008
Web Hosting Company caves to Islamists
Web hosting company Network Solutions has suspeneded the website for Geert Wilder's anti-Muslim film Fitna, citing possible violations of their Terms of Service:
After Pakistan disrupted YouTube worldwide over an interview with right-wing Dutch MP and filmmaker Geert Wilders, Network Solutions, acting as host as well as registrar, has suspended Wilders's site promoting the 15-minute film "Fitna" (a Koranic term translated as "strife"). The site now displays a notice that it is under investigation for possible violations of NetSol's acceptable use policy. According to the article the company's guidelines include "a sweeping prohibition against 'objectionable material of any kind or nature.'" The article describes the site's content before NetSol pulled the plug as a single page with the film's title, an image of the Koran, and the words "Coming Soon." No one but Wilders has seen the film to date. The Dutch government has distanced itself from the film, fearing Muslim backlash. A million Muslims live in The Netherlands. Wilders's party, which controls 9 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament, was elected on an anti-immigration platform.There is little doubt that Wilder's film would be "objectionable" to radical Islamists. How it would play to the rest of the Muslim world is predictable as well but hardly the point. There must be some subjective criteria in order to label something objectionable and since no one except Wilder has seen the film it would seem that NetSol jumped the gun on banning the website.
Wilder is a verbal bomb thrower. Some have likened his political party to the Nazis although that is almost certainly a gross exaggeration. His statements about banning the Koran in the Netherlands have elicited the strongest possible response from religious freedom advocates while his pronouncements on continued Muslim immigration have set off a debate about the nature of society in the Netherlands.
Should Wilder be granted the freedom to spout his ideas about Islam to the world? Given the freedom radical Islamists enjoy to spout their hatred on the internet one wonders why Wilders unseen film should suffer from being banned arbitrarily.
