".I had been invited to deliver the closing speech to the memorial conference
on what would have been Fortuyn's 58th birthday. I said I would talk on the
effects of Europe 's increasingly Islamicised population and advocate a
tougher European counterterror strategy. But the story of Holland - which I
have been charting for some years - should be noted by her allies. Where
Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The silencing
happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish cartoons
got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website after the
British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his staff, or
his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police provided
500 officers to protect a "peaceful" Muslim protest in Trafalgar Square . . We
should fear Holland 's silence Douglas Murray The Sunday Times ". Europe is
shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up to its
enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a minority
is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people.. The
governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism of a
belief is the same thing as criticism of a race. And so it is becoming
increasingly difficult and dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful
ideology within our midst. It may soon, in addition, be made illegal.
Holland - with its disproportionately high Muslim population - is the canary
in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing slowly
behind it. It looks, from Holland , like the twilight of liberalism - not the
"liberalism" that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that is
freedom. Not least freedom of expression."

_______________________________________

Muslims are stifling debate in what was Europe's freest country, says Douglas
Murray
'Would you write the name you'd like to use here, and your real name there?"
asked the girl at reception. I had just been driven to a hotel in the Hague.
An hour earlier I'd been greeted at Amsterdam airport by a man holding a sign
with a pre-agreed cipher. I hadn't known where I would be staying, or where I
would be speaking. The secrecy was necessary: I had come to Holland to talk
about Islam.
Last weekend, four years after his murder, Pim Fortuyn's political party,
Lijst Pim Fortuyn, held a conference in his memory on Islam and Europe. The
organisers had assembled nearly all the writers most critical of Islam's
current manifestation in the West. The American scholars Daniel Pipes and
Robert Spencer were present, as were the Egyptian-Jewish exile and scholar of
dhimmitude, Bat Ye'or, and the great Muslim apostate Ibn Warraq.



Both Ye'or and Warraq write and speak under pseudonyms. Standing at the
hotel desk I confessed to the girl that I didn't have any other name, couldn't
think of a good one fast. I was given my key and made aware that the other
person in the lobby, a tall figure in a dark suit, was my security detail. I
was taken up to my room where I changed, unpacked and headed back out - the
security guard now positioned outside my bedroom door.

I had been invited to deliver the closing speech to the memorial
conference on what would have been Fortuyn's 58th birthday. I said I would
talk on the effects of Europe's increasingly Islamicised population and
advocate a tougher European counterterror strategy. There was no overriding
political agenda to the occasion, simply a desire for frank discussion.

The event was scholarly, incisive and wide-ranging. There were no ranters
or rabble-rousers, just an invited audience of academics, writers, politicians
and sombre party members. As yet another example of Islam's violent
confrontation with the West (this time caused by cartoons) swept across the
globe, we tried to discuss Islam as openly as we could. The Dutch security
service in the Hague was among those who considered the threat to us for doing
this as particularly high. The security status of the event was put at just
one level below "national emergency".

This may seem fantastic to people in Britain. But the story of Holland -
which I have been charting for some years - should be noted by her allies.
Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following. The
silencing happens bit by bit. A student paper in Britain that ran the Danish
cartoons got pulped. A London magazine withdrew the cartoons from its website
after the British police informed the editor they could not protect him, his
staff, or his offices from attack. This happened only days before the police
provided 500 officers to protect a "peaceful" Muslim protest in Trafalgar
Square.

It seems the British police - who regularly provide protection for
mosques (as they did after the 7/7 bombs) - were unable to send even one
policeman to protect an organ of free speech. At the notorious London
protests, Islamists were allowed to incite murder and bloodshed on the
streets, but a passer-by objecting to these displays was threatened with
detention for making trouble.

Holland - with its disproportionately high Muslim population - is the
canary in the mine. Its once open society is closing, and Europe is closing
slowly behind it. It looks, from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism -
not the "liberalism" that is actually libertarianism, but the liberalism that
is freedom. Not least freedom of expression.

All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped. Italy's greatest
living writer, Oriana Fallaci, soon comes up for trial in her home country,
and in Britain the government seems intent on pushing through laws that would
make truths about Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice.

Those of us who write and talk on Islam thus get caught between those on
our own side who are increasingly keen to prosecute and increasing numbers of
militants threatening murder. In this situation, not only is free speech being
shut down, but our nation's security is being compromised.

Since the assassinations of Fortuyn and, in 2004, the film maker Theo van
Gogh, numerous public figures in Holland have received death threats and
routine intimidation. The heroic Somali-born Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her
equally outspoken colleague Geert Wilders live under constant police
protection, often forced to sleep on army bases. Even university professors
are under protection.

Europe is shuffling into darkness. It is proving incapable of standing up
to its enemies, and in an effort to accommodate the peripheral rights of a
minority is failing to protect the most basic rights of its own people.

The governments of Europe have been tricked into believing that criticism
of a belief is the same thing as criticism of a race. And so it is becoming
increasingly difficult and dangerous to criticise a growing and powerful
ideology within our midst. It may soon, in addition, be made illegal.

I had planned - the morning after my speech - to see Geert Wilders, but
instead spent the time catching up with his staff. Their leader had been
called in by the police to discuss more than 40 new death threats he had
received over the previous days.

As I left the Netherlands I once again felt terrible sorrow for a country
that is slowly being lost. A society which should be carefree and inspiring
has become dark and worried. The jihad in Europe is winning. And Holland, and
our continent, takes one step further into a dark and menacing future.