Kenilworth, 12 February 2009 — The gay humanist charity the Pink Triangle Trust (PTT) has declared its strong opposition to the ban imposed by the UK Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, on the Dutch MP Geert Wilders entering Britain. In his film Fitna, Mr Wilders is highly critical of Islam.
The PTT’s secretary, George Broadhead, said: “We maintain that in a free society anyone should have the right to criticise religion without being banned, dubbed racist or, even worse, threatened with death as the humanist author Salman Rushdie was over his book The Satanic Verses. As gay activist Peter Tachell has been at pains to point out, Mr Wilders has never threatened violence towards Muslims.
“There can be no doubt from reading its holy books, the Qur’an and the Hadith, that Islam is a homophobic religion which, at worst, has resulted in the barbaric torture and murder of LGBT people in Islamic theocracies like Iran and Saudi Arabia. But it also oppresses women and is vehemently hostile to apostates and unbelievers like humanists.
“As the Skeptic’s Annotated Qur’an website indicates, virtually every page is a manifesto for intolerance. It is chock-full of the dire punishments in store for those who don’t adhere to its beliefs.
“Those politicians who bend over backwards to portray Islam as a religion of tolerance and peace are either abysmally ignorant or deliberately ignoring the facts.
“Moreover, Jacqui Smith’s decision to ban Mr Wilders is in blatant contrast to her decision to allow Ibrahim Mousawi, chief spokesman of the Lebanese group Hezbollah – a militant Islamicist if ever there was one – to enter Britain last May – a clear example of double standards.”