Violence fear over Islam film
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The West Maghreb Dialogue
Jan 21, 2008, 12:26:44 PM1/21/08
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Violence fear over Islam film
Counter-terrorism alert as a Dutch right-winger launches a movie that
will denounce the Koran
Jason Burke, Europe editor
Sunday January 20, 2008
The Observer
The Dutch government is bracing itself for violent protests following
the scheduled broadcast this week of a provocative anti-Muslim film by
a radical right-wing politician who has threatened to broadcast images
of the Koran being torn up and otherwise desecrated.
Cabinet ministers and officials, fearing a repetition of the crisis
sparked by the publication of cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish
newspaper two years ago, have held a series of crisis meetings and
ordered counter-terrorist services to draw up security plans. Dutch
nationals overseas have been asked to register with their embassies
and local mayors in the Netherlands have been put on standby.
Article continues
Geert Wilders, one of nine members of the extremist VVD (Freedom)
party in the 150-seat Dutch lower house, has promised that his film
will be broadcast - on television or on the internet - whatever the
pressure may be. It will, he claims, reveal the Koran as 'source of
inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror'.
Dutch diplomats are already trying to pre-empt international reaction.
'It is difficult to anticipate the content of the film, but freedom of
expression doesn't mean the right to offend,' said Maxime Verhagen,
the Foreign Minister, who was in Madrid to attend the Alliance of
Civilisations, an international forum aimed at reducing tensions
between the Islamic world and the West. In Amsterdam, Rotterdam and
other towns with large Muslim populations, imams say they have needed
to 'calm down' growing anger in their communities.
Government officials hope that no mainstream media organisation will
agree to show the film, although one publicly funded channel, Nova,
initially agreed before pulling out. 'A broadcast on a public channel
could imply that the government supported the project,' said an
Interior Ministry spokesman.
Demonstrations are also expected from those opposed to Wilders beyond
Holland's Muslim community - a number of left-wing activists have
already been arrested - and from his supporters. Members of a group
calling itself Stop Islamisation of Europe are planning to travel to
Amsterdam. 'Geert Wilders is an elected politician who has made a
film, and that he is under armed guard as a result is absolutely
outrageous,' said Stephen Gash, a UK-based member, yesterday. 'It is
all about free speech.'
In November 2004, anger and violence followed the stabbing and
shooting by a Dutch teenager of Moroccan parentage of the
controversial film-maker Theo Van Gogh, a distant relative of the
artist.
The attacker said the killing was in response to a film about Islam
and domestic violence that Van Gogh had made with the Somalian-born
activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, then an MP, which showed images of naked
veiled women with lines from the Koran projected over them.
From her self-imposed exile in Washington, Hirsi Ali last week
criticised the new film as 'provocation' and called on the major Dutch
political parties to restart a debate on immigration that has split
Dutch society in recent years, rather than leave the field to
extremists.
Wilders announced his plans last November, saying he was making a film
to show the violent and fascist elements of the Muslim faith. The
maverick politician's remarks about Islam have become increasingly
radical. In February last year he said that if Muslims wanted to stay
in the Netherlands, they should tear out half of the Koran and throw
it away. In parliament he then called for the Koran and Hitler's Mein
Kampf to be banned, a proposal that was rejected.
Job Cohen, the left-wing mayor of Amsterdam, echoed Hirsi Ali's words
and called for a debate 'so that the moderates can make themselves
heard'.
During a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week,
Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, said that, were
Wilders was seen to tear up or burn a Koran in his film, 'this will
simply mean he is inciting wars and bloodshed ... It is the
responsibility of the Dutch people to stop him.'
Counter-terrorism alert as a Dutch right-winger launches a movie that
will denounce the Koran
Jason Burke, Europe editor
Sunday January 20, 2008
The Observer
The Dutch government is bracing itself for violent protests following
the scheduled broadcast this week of a provocative anti-Muslim film by
a radical right-wing politician who has threatened to broadcast images
of the Koran being torn up and otherwise desecrated.
Cabinet ministers and officials, fearing a repetition of the crisis
sparked by the publication of cartoons of Muhammad in a Danish
newspaper two years ago, have held a series of crisis meetings and
ordered counter-terrorist services to draw up security plans. Dutch
nationals overseas have been asked to register with their embassies
and local mayors in the Netherlands have been put on standby.
Article continues
Geert Wilders, one of nine members of the extremist VVD (Freedom)
party in the 150-seat Dutch lower house, has promised that his film
will be broadcast - on television or on the internet - whatever the
pressure may be. It will, he claims, reveal the Koran as 'source of
inspiration for intolerance, murder and terror'.
Dutch diplomats are already trying to pre-empt international reaction.
'It is difficult to anticipate the content of the film, but freedom of
expression doesn't mean the right to offend,' said Maxime Verhagen,
the Foreign Minister, who was in Madrid to attend the Alliance of
Civilisations, an international forum aimed at reducing tensions
between the Islamic world and the West. In Amsterdam, Rotterdam and
other towns with large Muslim populations, imams say they have needed
to 'calm down' growing anger in their communities.
Government officials hope that no mainstream media organisation will
agree to show the film, although one publicly funded channel, Nova,
initially agreed before pulling out. 'A broadcast on a public channel
could imply that the government supported the project,' said an
Interior Ministry spokesman.
Demonstrations are also expected from those opposed to Wilders beyond
Holland's Muslim community - a number of left-wing activists have
already been arrested - and from his supporters. Members of a group
calling itself Stop Islamisation of Europe are planning to travel to
Amsterdam. 'Geert Wilders is an elected politician who has made a
film, and that he is under armed guard as a result is absolutely
outrageous,' said Stephen Gash, a UK-based member, yesterday. 'It is
all about free speech.'
In November 2004, anger and violence followed the stabbing and
shooting by a Dutch teenager of Moroccan parentage of the
controversial film-maker Theo Van Gogh, a distant relative of the
artist.
The attacker said the killing was in response to a film about Islam
and domestic violence that Van Gogh had made with the Somalian-born
activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali, then an MP, which showed images of naked
veiled women with lines from the Koran projected over them.
From her self-imposed exile in Washington, Hirsi Ali last week
criticised the new film as 'provocation' and called on the major Dutch
political parties to restart a debate on immigration that has split
Dutch society in recent years, rather than leave the field to
extremists.
Wilders announced his plans last November, saying he was making a film
to show the violent and fascist elements of the Muslim faith. The
maverick politician's remarks about Islam have become increasingly
radical. In February last year he said that if Muslims wanted to stay
in the Netherlands, they should tear out half of the Koran and throw
it away. In parliament he then called for the Koran and Hitler's Mein
Kampf to be banned, a proposal that was rejected.
Job Cohen, the left-wing mayor of Amsterdam, echoed Hirsi Ali's words
and called for a debate 'so that the moderates can make themselves
heard'.
During a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg last week,
Ahmad Badr al-Din Hassoun, the Grand Mufti of Syria, said that, were
Wilders was seen to tear up or burn a Koran in his film, 'this will
simply mean he is inciting wars and bloodshed ... It is the
responsibility of the Dutch people to stop him.'
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