Controversial imam can speak in Holland

Friday 23 January 2009

The controversial imam Khalid Yasin can give a number of speeches in the Netherlands over the next few days but will be prosecuted if he incites hatred, the NRC reports on Thursday.

The paper says justice minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin has told MPs that Yasin cannot be refused entry unless he is a danger to national security or public order. Yasin, a convert to Islam, was born in the US and does not need a visa.

In the past the imam has reportedly said homosexuals should be killed, that AIDs was invented by the west and deliberately injected into Africans under the guise of vaccinations, and that Muslims cannot have non-Muslim friends.

Hirsch Ballin told MPs that the Netherlands respects the right to freedom of speech as long as legal boundaries are observed, the paper said.

'The government can only intervene if there is incitement to hatred. If that is the case in this instance, or if prosecution would be opportune, depends on the judgment of the public prosecution department,' the NRC quoted the minister as saying.

© DutchNews.nl

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