AFP: BRDO PRI KRANJU, Slovenia (AFP) — EU justice ministers have expressed concern about a far-right Dutch lawmaker's plan to make a potentially inflammatory film about the Koran, ministers and officials said Saturday.
They said that Dutch justice officials had raised the issue at informal talks in Slovenia, and had called for EU support, amid concern that the short film could reignite tensions with Muslims after the Danish cartoons affair.
"It would, of course, have important repercussions for other countries of the European Union as well," Luxembourg Justice Minister Luc Frieden told AFP, on the sidelines of the talks.
"It is our moral duty to call upon everybody, to make people aware, so that they do not abuse their fundamental rights" of freedom of expression, he said.
"We must also protect those who may be hurt or harmed by irresponsible statements."
Far-right deputy Geert Wilders has been in the spotlight since he announced in the Netherlands in November that he plans to make a short film to show that Islam's holy book is "a fascist book" that "incites people to murder".
Dutch observers fear that Wilders will burn or tear up the Koran in it.
"The Dutch minister expressed a certain preoccupation about that and asked for the support of his colleagues," an EU official told AFP.
It remains unclear if and when the movie will be shown. Wilders told Saturday's edition of Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf that it would be several weeks yet, after earlier giving a date of the end of January.
"The EU has to be attentive," the EU official said. "We are trying to avoid the situation we had with the cartoons." EU ministers express concern about Dutch anti-Islam film >>>
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