Moroccan teens 'spit' on Van Gogh portrait

[Heinrich]

4 November 2004

AMSTERDAM — Moroccan teenagers have allegedly spat on a large portrait
of murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in Amsterdam, it was reported
Thursday.

Shortly after Van Gogh's murder on Tuesday, spray can and graffiti
artist Donovan Spaanstra, 33, painted a portrait of the Dutch television
celebrity and columnist on the façade of a building in the Warmoesstraat.

"For an artist, from an artist. Van Gogh has walked past here
thousands of times," Spaanstra told newspaper De Telegraaf.
Initially greeted by applause for painting the portrait, Spaanstra
claimed some Moroccan teens then hassled him, screaming "Hamas, Hamas". He
claimed they even spat on the portrait and did not want to discuss the
killing.

Van Gogh was shot and stabbed on Tuesday morning and

police arrested a 26-year-old Dutch-Moroccan man in connection with
the killing. Police are investigating his alleged links with Islamic
fundamentalists.

Immigrant groups in the Netherlands — the Municipal Moroccan Council
(SMR) and the Turkish Cultural Federation — have forthrightly condemned the
assassination.

There was also applause, approval and expressions of sadness witnessed
in Warmoesstraat in reaction to the Van Gogh portrait. A swathe of flowers
has since been placed before the paint