How to stop hate preachers?

The Dutch have a problem. A Dutch known Islamist hate preacher has declared that the Muslim mayor of Rotterdam would be apostate. In his circles that is a license to murder.

The minister of Justice and Safety declared in the weekly Question Hour in Parliament that unfortunately he could not do anything against this, because he was afraid to take away more of the freedom of speech. We should not get to a situation of “a good-willing person” being indicted for saying something too harsh in an emotional moment.

However, he found all parliamentarians against him and immediately after the meeting he declared to the press outside that he wanted to look for ways to limit the freedom of speech so that such people can be stopped. (Curious, that he only said this afterwards to the press.) A whole battery of lawyers now is needed to find ways to put such hate preachers away. I’m not a lawyer, but I surely have a proposal.

I think that what is needed is a law that says that if someone commits an act of threatening or other violence, people who called for such action, implicitly or explicitly, will get the same sentence as the perpetrator.

That would mean that is someone gets attacked, the perpetrator and his preacher who inspired him will get an equal penalty. I think that would solve the problem. It would also protect the vast majority of Muslims who are inspired by their religion to live a moral and peaceful life.

It was Shimon Peres who once said: The religious leaders who send youngsters on a suicide mission, never send their own kids.