Tuesday, November 09, 2004

Can the highest court shut down a political party that becomes too far-right in its beliefs?

It happened in Belgium. BBC reports the following:

Belgium's highest court has ruled that the Flemish far-right Vlaams Blok party is racist.

[Now please, readers, I am not advocating any such measures here, and since I am still getting tons of traffic from the wonderful people from the site that advocates the use of assault weapons, I do not want at at all lead you to believe that I am out there promoting any ban on far-right political agendas. Uh-uh, no way! Free speech and all that, go 2nd Amendment! --or whatever it is that you are seeking to protect.]

Back to the Belgians then: With the ruling comes an end to federal funding and access to TV airtime and so the party has effectively been run out of business. Note that this wasn’t just a fringe movement. The BBC notes that recent opinion polls indicate that the Vlaams Blok party is the most popular party in the Dutch-speaking region of Flanders. Where did it run into trouble? In taking a strong position on immigration (toned down recently from advocating the return of immigrants to their home countries, to saying that non-European immigrants can remain in Belgium so long as they adopt Belgian rules and values).


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