March 27 2011
Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-Islam Freedom Party which currently supports the coalition minority government in the Netherlands, gave a speech for the Magna Carta Foundation in Rome in which he called for a “Leave Islam Day”. Wilders’ suggestion for the day “in which we can honor the courageous men and women who want to leave Islam” formed one of several strategies to “turn the tide of Islamization” in Europe.
Back in the Netherlands on March 31, Wilders called in an interview with HP/De Tijd for public debate on the “real nature and character of Mohammed.” The parliamentary leader for the CDA, the party Wilders’ PVV supports in the parliamentary coalition, called the statements “unnecessary and tasteless.”
