Wednesday, 29 April 2015 - 14:41
US Jewish org.: "Anti-Muslim bigot" Wilders shouldn't meet Congressmen
The Anti Defamation League, an influential Jewish civil rights movement in America, is not happy with the fact that PVV leader Geert Wilders will be a guest speaker in Washington D.C. on Wednesday.
In a statement the group says that they are "deeply distressed" that two United States Congressmen, Steve King from Iowa and Louie Gohmert from Texas, are hosting "anti-Muslim bigot Geert Wilders"
Early this month Wilders announced on his blog that he will be in Washington on April 29th as the guest of King and Gohmert. He stated that he will be speaking at a reception offered by Gohmert and then at a breakfast meeting of US Congressmen belonging to the Conservative Opportunity Society. "I feel deeply honored by the invitations. In my speeches I will warn my American colleagues of the dangers of Islamization."
The ADL states that they have asked the two Congressmen to reconsider the invitation, giving some of Wilders "bigoted and profoundly offensive views" as reason. The group notes that Wilders called Islam "not a religion" but a "totalitarian ideology akin to National Socialism" and described the Koran as being "even worse than Mein Kampf".
"Mr. Wilders is entitled to express his opinions, but for an elected member of the House of Representatives to provide a platform for a man who is practically an international symbol of anti-Muslim hatred only lends him credibility, it ill-serves the goal of having a Congress that lives up to America's ideals of tolerance", Abraham H. Foxman, national director of ADL, said. "Reps. King and Gohmert should reconsider the invitation, given this individual's established record as one of the most notorious bigots in the world."