By DAILY MAIL REPORTER A right-wing Dutch politician is to be sent back to the Netherlands after attempting to defy a ban on entering Britain. Geert Wilders arrived at Heathrow airport this afternoon and was presented with a letter that refused him entry to the UK. Mr Wilders said he was detained by UK Border Agency officials on arrival, had his passport taken away, and was told he would be sent home within two hours. The politician had been invited to Westminster to show his 17-minute film Fitna, which criticises the Koran as a 'fascist book', by a member of the House of Lords. Speaking from Heathrow, Mr Wilders branded Gordon Brown the 'biggest coward in Europe' and said freedom of speech in Britain had been 'set back centuries'. Geert Wilders arrives at Heathrow shortly before he is told he will be sent back to the Netherlands Geert Wilders shows his passport and boarding pass at Amsterdam's Schiphol airport before leaving for London today He told the BBC: 'We should have a public debate, we should have freedom of speech. It's very easy to invite people who agree with you... 'I think that a discussion is always better than barring people or turning people away.' Gordon Brown's spokesman declined to say whether Home Secretary Jacqui Smith consulted the Prime Minister before taking the decision to exclude Mr Wilders, but added: 'The Prime Minister fully supports the decision taken by the Home Secretary.' Among those waiting for Mr Wilders in arrivals at the airport was Gerard Batten, UK Independence Party MEP for London. He said: "I thought it would be a nice touch to turn up and welcome him here if he gets through." On Tuesday Mr Wilders received a letter from the Home Office refusing him entry because his opinions 'would threaten community security and therefore public security' in the UK. But Mr Wilders, a member of Holland's Freedom Party, condemned the British Government as 'weak and cowardly' and vowed he to make the trip anyway. Mr Wilders has urged the Dutch government to ban the Koran and warned of a 'tsunami' of Islam swamping the Netherlands. His film sparked violent protests around the Muslim world last year for linking verses in the religious text with footage of terrorist attacks. He has launched an appeal against an Amsterdam court's order that he should be prosecuted for hate speech. Mr Wilders said he had already shown his film to Denmark's parliament and would take it to Italy and the US House of Representatives in the coming weeks. He told the BBC: 'I was very surprised and very saddened that the freedom of speech that I believe was a very strong point in UK society is being harassed today.' Home Secretary Jacqui Smith: Barred Mr Wilders on the grounds that his visit was a threat to 'community harmony and therefore public security' Dutch foreign minister Maxime Verhagen said the government of the Netherlands would press for a reversal of the travel ban. UK Independence Party peer Lord Pearson, who invited Mr Wilders to Britain, said the screening of the film would go ahead today 'with or without Mr Wilders'. In a joint statement he and cross-bench peer Baroness Cox said they were 'promoting freedom of speech' and accused the Government of 'appeasing' militant Islam. They added: 'Geert Wilder's Fitna film, available on the web, is not a threat to anyone. 'They react in fury and menace to our intention to show the film and have boasted that their threats of aggressive demonstrations prevented its previous showing in the Mother of Parliaments. 'This was not the case - the event was postponed to clarify issues of freedom of speech. 'The threat of intimidation in fact increases the justification for the film to be shown and discussed in Parliament and by the British and international press.' The 15-minute documentary features verses from the Koran - which it brands a 'fascist book' - alongside images of the 9/11 and 7/7 terrorist attacks The Home Office said: 'The Government opposes extremism in all its forms. 'It will stop those who want to spread extremism, hatred and violent messages in our communities from coming to our country and that was the driving force behind tighter rules on exclusions for unacceptable behaviour that the Home Secretary announced in October last year.' Liberal Democrat home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne said: 'Freedom of speech is our most precious freedom of all, because all the other freedoms depend on it. 'But there is a line to be drawn even with freedom of speech, and that is where it is likely to incite violence or hatred against someone or some group. 'Where there is risk of harm to others, there has to be some limit. 'Having watched Geert Wilders' movie Fitna, with its raw and emotional appeals to anti-Islamic feeling and its shocking images of violence, there is no doubt in my mind that he has overstepped the line that should be defended in a civilised society and that the Home Secretary's ruling is right.' Mr Wilders has urged that the Dutch government ban the Koran in the same way it did Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf A spokesman for the Conservative Party said it did not wish to comment. The National Secular Society's president said he wrote to Home Secretary Jacqui Smith arguing she had made a mistake in denying an application by a 'democratically-elected politician from a sovereign state who wants to come and express an opinion'. Terry Sanderson said: 'It may be a controversial opinion but he is entitled to express it. 'We think that is not a good enough reason. 'It's very disturbing that they are prepared to do this just on the basis that somebody might object.' Mr Sanderson said that while the organisation did not agree with a lot of what Mr Wilders said, the right way to deal with it was to 'argue with him, debate and discuss - not silence him'. Wilders is the latest and most extreme face of anti-Islamic sentiment to claim leadership of the growing political far-Right in Holland. The 45-year-old has based his appeal to voters on loathing of the Koran and the attempt to make a direct link between Islam and terrorism. Previous populist anti-immigration leaders have been a little more ambiguous. For instance, Pim Fortuyn, murdered by a leftist activist in 2002, was gay --and his liberal approach to sex tempered his hard line on Islam. By contrast, Mr Wilders pumps out the simple message that the Koran is bad and that Muslims must abandon it. Murdered: Dutch right-wing MP Pim Fortuyn was shot in the head Lawyer Gerard Spong, a friend of Fortuyn's, has persuaded Dutch appeal judges to prosecute Wilders for his film. 'Geert Wilders incites hatred against Muslims, and Pim did not do that: he had sex with Moroccan boys in dark rooms,' he said. Mr Wilders, who is married to a Hungarian, was born to a middle-class Catholic family, the son of a printing company director in the town of Venlo. Despite his regular pronouncements on the Judaeo-Christian heritage of his country, he is no longer a religious man. He began working for a health insurance company before shifting into politics as a speechwriter for a liberal party. Some say his experience of being mugged as a city councillor in Utrecht in the late 1990s may have made him more Right-wing. In 2002, Mr Wilders broke with the liberals over their support for Turkish entry into the EU. He formed his own Freedom Party following the 2004 murder of film maker Theo van Gogh. He was killed by an Islamic radical after making a film called Submission, showing an actress in see-through clothing with Islamic verses written on her body. In 2006, Mr Wilders campaigned for a ban on the burqa and secured nine seats in the Dutch parliament. The message of the Freedom Party is that the Koran is akin to Hitler's Mein Kampf, that Islam is a 'fascist ideology' - and that Dutch society is being engulfed in a tidal wave of Islamisation. It calls for an end to immigration by Muslims and for payments to encourage Muslims to emigrate. As part of this, Wilders has produced the 15-minute Fitna film, which contains footage of victims of the terror attacks on the World Trade Centre and the sound of those caught in the buildings calling emergency services for help and victims of the 2005 terror attacks in London. The film ends with the sound of tearing pages and urges Muslims to do the same to the Islamic holy book, the Koran. In some cities in Holland, Muslims make up a third of the population. Mr Wilders's call for less tolerance of immigrants is receiving a hearing among growing numbers who are becoming alarmed at the direction their country is taking. There is also a sense of deepening unease in other European countries, where political leaders are only too aware of the potential for reactionary mass politics in a time of recession and unemployment. The Home Secretary may consider Geert Wilders too much of a threat to public safety to be allowed into Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, 82 Egyptian-born Muslim cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi Visited Egyptian-born spiritual leader of Muslim Brotherhood, which embraces the Hamas organisation that controls Has justified suicide bombing, which he calls martyrdom, and the killing of Israeli women and children, on the grounds that they are 'militarised'. Bounty Killer, Rodney Price, 36 Performed in The Jamaican reggae singer is accused by critics of glorifying gang violence and guns and of inciting murder against gays. One song, translated from the Jamaican patois, calls on listeners to 'burn a fire on poofs and faggots'. Another claims: 'We need no promo to rub out dem homo'. Reverend Sun Myung Moon, 89 Sun Myung Moon, founder of the Unification Church Labour Home Secretary Charles Clarke overturned a 27-year ban against the cult leader and allowed him 24 hours in The Korean-born billionaire declares himself to be the Messiah. His movement, famous for its mass weddings of thousands of couples, is said to brainwash the young people it persuades to become followers. It has been a failure in Raymond Horne, 62 A serial paedophile with a long jail history in Horne, who emigrated to He was released last year from a 12-year sentence for 14 offences against two homeless boys he met while posing as a charity volunteer. British ministers made no objection when Australian authorities deported him to this country after he finished his sentence, on the grounds that because he never took out Australian citizenship, he is British. Ibrahim Moussawi, 43 Ibrahim Moussawi, editor of the newspaper Al-Intiqad Propagandist for Hezbollah cleared to enter the country by Jacqui Smith in November, despite fierce Tory objections. He is the head of a TV station that routinely describes suicide bombers as 'martyrs' and which has broadcast a 30-part series on the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, an anti-semitic forgery produced in Moussawi is alleged to have said that Jews are 'a lesion on the forehead of history'.Dutch MP banned over anti-Islam film is to be sent back home from Heathrow
Last updated at 4:54 PM on 12th February 2009
'It merely suggests how the Koran has been used by militant Islamists to promote and justify their violence.
'We think that the wrong people are being targeted here because the reason they have given for refusing him entry is that it may result in some kind of public disturbance.
And just look at those we HAVE let in...
FIREBRAND CLERIC
HOMOPHOBIC SINGER
BILLIONAIRE CULT LEADER
SERIAL PAEDOPHILE
ANTI-SEMITIC AGITATOR
Thursday, 12 February 2009
The hypocrisy of the British Government!
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