.... the court decided that Wilders did not offend people on the basis of their religion, nor did he encourage people to discriminate against others on the basis of their religion because Wilders never said anything about Muslim people, but about the Islamic religion.
Offending a religion, or a religious entity, is officially forbidden under Dutch law, but has been accepted for a very long time. The court said that Wilders's statements qualified under this prohibition, but in practice it is no longer a punishable offense.
However, once it intends to cause hate or discrimination against a group of people on the basis of their religion, it goes too far. With some of Wilders's statements, the court said, he reached the outer limits of the law without going over.
The fact that people feel offended by what Wilders said does not mean that it was intended to insult them. Since it was aimed at the religion and not the people following this religion, this was not a punishable offense. [JURIST] Read more [via National Secular Society]
