Old article but tells about spong the lawyer who hates Wilders
Meanwhile. Wilders has received the public support of the small Dutch fundamentalist Calvinist party SGP. Cees Van der Staaij, the SGP leader, wants Maxime Verhagen, the Dutch Foreign Minister, to tell Islamic countries they are hypocrites if they complain about religious insults in the Netherlands.
“If you see what is spewed out daily via various Arabic broadcasters over the world in hatred against the Jews, Israel, the US and the West, the criticism of Wilders' yet-to-be-shown mini-film is pure hypocrisy,” Van der Staaij said yesterday during an exchange in the Dutch Lower House. Deputy Foreign Minister Frans Timmermans, who replied for Minister Verhaegen, acknowledged that Van der Staaij has a point. Verhaegen, who is currently touring Muslim countries to explain the Dutch position, told the press in Syria that the Dutch government does not agree with Wilders’ view on Islam. “We are a country where Muslims and Christians can live together in harmony,” Verhaegen said. Last week, the Grand Mufti of Syria threatened the Netherlands if Wilders were to insult Islam.
The Dutch government, however, defends Wilders’ freedom of speech. Yesterday, Ernst Hirsch Ballin, the Dutch Minister of Justice, informed his EU colleagues that The Hague would not prohibit Wilders from making his film. Hirsch Ballin told the Dutch media that the EU did not discuss taking common measures in the event that the film should lead to Muslim violence.
The Dutch Muslim Council has called Wilders a “racist, fascist and authoritarian” and a threat to Dutch society. Several Dutch Muslim and leftist organizations and individuals have lodged more than 40 complaints against Wilders for incitement to racial hatred. Gerard Spong, one of the leading (and most expensive) lawyers in the country, has offered to defend their cases free of charge. Spong was a friend of the late Pim Fortuyn. Following the murder of Fortuyn in 2002 he lodged complaints against several Dutch politicians for having contributed to the hate campaign against Fortuyn which resulted in his assassination by a political adversary.
Spong, who is also the lawyer of a Dutch teenager indicted on murder charges in the case of Natalee Holloway, an American teenager who disappeared in Arubu in May 2005, told Dutch television that “Wilders cannot be compared to Fortuyn because Wilders incites hatred against Muslims, which Fortuyn who had sex with Moroccan boys in dark rooms, did not do. […] When Wilders says that half the Koran has to be ripped to pieces and burned, he is inciting hatred.” According to Spong the Dutch public prosecutor is a coward who is afraid to prosecute Wilders because the latter will claim that it is a political prosecution.
http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/2905