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Geert Wilders, leader of the Dutch anti-Islam Freedom
Party, speaks at a rally of so-called ‘Patriotic Europeans
against the Islamization of the West’ (PEGIDA) in
Dresden, Germany, Monday, April 13, 2015.
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Two members of Congress hosted Dutch Politician and founder of the
Netherlands’ Party for Freedom Geert Wilders Wednesday. The
Anti-Defamation League (ADL) described Reps. Steve King (R-IA) and Louie
Gohmert’s (R-TX) invitation for Wilders to
speak to the Conservative Opportunity Society as “deeply distressing.”
“Muslims can be moderates. But there is no moderate Islam,” Wilders
said to the crowd. “Islam has changed Europe beyond recognition.”
Wilders has a history of using discriminatory speech, particularly
against Muslim immigrants and Islam, and he did so again at Wednesday’s
speech by comparing the religion to National Socialism, or Nazism.
“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 not
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, ADL
National Director, said in a press release from earlier this week.
“Reps. King and Gohmert should reconsider the invitation, given this
individual’s established record as one of the most notorious bigots in
the world.”
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