AMSTERDAM -- Supporters of Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders are demonstrating outside an Amsterdam court where he is appearing to answer charges of inciting hate against the Netherlands' Muslim minority.
Wilders' lawyer Bram Moszkowicz has challenged the court's jurisdiction and argued the case against his client is unfounded.

Wilders has been charged over remarks comparing the Quran to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" and calling for it to be banned in the Netherlands. He has become one of the country's leading politicians by giving a voice to anti-immigrant sentiment.

Presiding Judge Jan Moors assured Wilders on Wednesday he would receive a fair trial. Supporters outside the court said Wilders' prosecution is an assault on freedom of speech.

In the summer of 2008, as many readers know, I traveled to six European countries to interview politicians dedicated to breaking, halting and/or reversing the Islamization of their countries (here is a collection of some of the writings inspired by the trip).

One of those politicians was Geert Wilders, then the little-known (outside of the Netherlands) leader of a very small party, PVV, the Party for Freedom. Only a year and a half later, Wilders is the most famous Dutchman in the world, and his party rivals the current ruling party in popularity. Wilders is also now on trial for his political life and liberty -- hardly a coincidence.

It's difficult to imagine a more engrossing, enervating and distracting news environment. From Massachusetts to Haiti, from Capitol Hill to the mountains of Afghanistan, colossal events rate colossal headlines. In such fraught times, how easy for Americans to ignore an equally collossal if largely overlooked and little understood event in tiny Holland where Geert Wilders, a member of Dutch parliament, will arrive at the courthouse in Amsterdam tomorrow morning to go on trial for his speech and liberty. But, as an online symposium presented by the International Free Press Society indicates, this trial in the heart of Europe is for our speech and liberty as well.

Did Islam critic Geert Wilders violate Dutch law by calling the Koran a "fascist book" and Islam a "backward culture?"This is the question an Amsterdam court will have to answer when the leader of the Freedom Party PVV goes on trial Wednesday.