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So Gert Wilders isn't currently fighting for his freedom and freedom of speech? Or do you just dismiss him as a hate criminal out of hand and therefore not attribute what he says to freedom of speech?



It's Geert, not Gert. And no, he is not fighting anything at the moment. The 'DA' office (not an elected official, btw) decided not to prosecute and dropped all charges more than a month ago. Don't know exactly why they didn't proceed with the trial. Probably got scared. And it turned into a bit of a TV show event. Lawyers challenging judges, judges speaking out in public, politicians talking before, during and after their turn.
I think Geert is a pretty dumb man with very abject opinions, but he's entitled to them. The bad thing is that he's costing Dutch tax payers a lot of money. For the rest, I don't give a flying fuck about Geert and his 'movement'. I only hope there are enough reasonable people left in my country to keep us from turning into a very bleak, isolated and self-centered land of 'wildgewordene Kleinbürger'.

Sidenote:
I'm glad that h2c is here to tell y'all what's happening in The Netherlands. He seems to be an expert.

Edit to add:
The proposed closing (or minimalization) of the red light district has been a topic for quite some years. It has nothing to do with the moral side of things. It's kind of a 'Free Zone' for people to do what they want. Which means that most brothels are owned and/or operated by criminal organizations (Russian, FYR, Hell's Angels, etc.). Drugs, weapons, false IDs, human trafficking, money laundering and more shady shit run rampant. It's beyond government control and Dutch officials don't handle loss of control easily.
This whole clean-up thing will fade away, as there are too many interests concerned.
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The only thing you got that I want, is your suffering.