Cowardly Dutch Government Considers Banning Geert Wilders’ Anti-Koran Film
THE GUARDIAN: The Dutch government was today examining the legality of banning a film attacking Islam amid fears that it would fan sentiment against the Netherlands in Muslim countries.

The Telegraaf newspaper reported that the coalition government was divided on the film, with the Christian Democrats leaning towards a ban but Labour favouring freedom of expression and calling on Muslim countries to prevent violence against the Netherlands.

The 15-minute film, called Fitna - an Arabic term used in the Qur'an and sometimes translated as "strife" - was made by Geert Wilders, a rightwing politician who leads the nine-member PVV (Freedom) party.

Wilders has argued that there is no such thing as moderate Islam, and has called for a ban of the Qur'an, which he compares to Hitler's Mein Kampf.

"The core of the problem is fascistic Islam, the sick ideology of Allah and Muhammad as it is set out in the Islamic Mein Kampf: the Koran," he wrote in a comment piece for the Volksrant newspaper last year.

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the Nato secretary general, has expressed concern about the safety of Nato troops after protests against the film in Afghanistan.

"If the [troops] find themselves in the line of fire because of the film, then I am worried about it and I am expressing that concern," he said in a television interview.

Yesterday, around 1,000 Afghans protested against the republication of a cartoon of the prophet Muhammad in Danish newspapers and Wilders' plan to air the film.

The protesters, mostly religious clerics in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif, demanded the withdrawal of Danish and Dutch troops from Afghanistan.

The Dutch prime minister, Jan Peter Balkenende, warned last week that the Netherlands risked economic sanctions and attacks against its troops because of the film. He stopped short, however, of saying that it should not be broadcast. Dutch government could ban anti-Islam film >>> By Mark Tran and agencies

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE:
Backlash begins even before Dutch lawmaker's anti-Quran film airs The Associated Press | March 3, 2008

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Al-Qaeda Orders the Assassination of Geert Wilders and Calls for Muslims to Terrorize the Netherlands
Photo of Geert Wilders courtesy of Klein Verzet
NIS NEWS BULLETIN: AMSTERDAM, 28/02/08 - The terrorist network Al-Qaeda has given orders for the assassination of MP Geert Wilders, newspaper De Telegraaf reports. The Party for Freedom (PVV) leader must be 'slaughtered', the orders say, because he has insulted Islam and the prophet Mohammed.

The newspaper based its report on a recent message on a protected web forum of internet site al-ekhlaas.net, which De Telegraaf claims is affiliated with Al-Qaeda. The internet threat, which was posted on 28 January, was intercepted by the American research institute SITE Intelligence Group, the newspaper reports.

"In the name of Allah, we ask you to bring us the neck of this unbeliever who insults Islam and the Muslims and ridicules the prophet Mohammed," the site says about Wilders, according to the newspaper.

The message honours Mohammed Bouyeri as a hero. This Amsterdam-born Moroccan Muslim cut Islam-critic Theo van Gogh's throat on 2 November 2004. The message also appeals for readers to "terrorise" the Netherlands to prevent Wilders' controversial film on the Koran from being broadcast. 'Al Qaeda Fatwa against MP Wilders' >>>

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Dutch Cabinet “Gravely Worried” about Wilder’s Film
”Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende on national TV, calling on Mr Wilders to reconsider his movie plan.” Photo courtesy of Radio Netherlands Worldwide
RADIO NETHERLANDS WORLDWIDE: Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende says he's "gravely concerned" about the consequences of the yet-to-be-broadcast anti-Qur'an film being produced by right wing politician Geert Wilders.

The Dutch cabinet discussed the repercussions of the film at length during their weekly meeting. The cabinet clearly wants to get a message of tolerance and moderation out before the film is released.

In a statement to the press, the Prime Minister said the Netherlands stands for freedom, but also for respect. He stopped short of calling on Mr Wilders not to broadcast the film, but, he said, "the first person who has to take responsibility for the consequences, is Mr Wilders himself. And that's not a call for him to do anything, but he should look into his own conscience, and ask what his responsibility here is."

Capitulating to Islam


In reaction to the Prime Minister, Mr Wilders said "The cabinet is capitulating to Islam. I will never, ever do so." Earlier in the week, in an unusual move, Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen called on Mr Wilders not to broadcast the film. Mr Wilders was even stronger in his response to the Foreign Minister, telling him to "stuff it".

Mr Wilders is the leader of the populist Freedom Party, the fifth largest party in the Dutch parliament. He has long been making headlines with his claims that Islam's holy book of is fascist, and should be banned. His film, which is said now to be finished, has been creating controversy in the Netherlands and abroad since the plan to make it became known in early December. The film is fifteen minutes long, and is called Fitna, Arabic for trial or ordeal. Dutch cabinet gravely worried about Wilders film >>>

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There Should Be a Million Anti-Koran Films, Says Grant Swank
J GRANT SWANK JR: What fuss over “Fitna,” the Dutch anti-Islam film soon to be out.

There should be countless numbers of these films shown worldwide to stop Islam World Rule enthusiasts who would lay down their bodies for the take-over.

Per The Washington Times’ Leander Schaerlaeckens: “Europe's uneasy relationship with its Muslim minority faces another blow next month, when Dutch politician Geert Wilders releases a 15-minute film that compares Islam to Nazism and communism.

“The film is called ‘Fitna,’ an Arabic term for ‘discord.’ It intersperses verses of the Koran with footage of terrorist attacks and other Islamist-inspired violence.”

To begin with, all civil individuals around the planet should read the Koran just to know what they are talking about. The Koran in its complete form is on the Internet. Anyone can get to it via ”Koran.”

Then the knowledgeable individual will realize why these kinds of films are necessary to stave off the enemy encroaching at freedom countries’ doors.

"’The film will show that the Koran isn't a dead work, but the face of Islam — a tremendous hazard,’ Mr. Wilders told the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

“He said the film calls the Koran ‘the latest test to Western democracies since Nazism and communism.’”

That is so true. Following Nazism and Communism, civil nations are now confronted with Islamic murderers espousing [that] all non-Muslims [be] slain. There are so-called moderates? All moderates will be considered cowards if they do not play out the final scene of erasing non-Muslims from the world. If they persist in being cowardly, they will be slain.

The Koran’s Allah demands it. ’Fitna’: There Should Be a Million ‘Dutch Anti-Islam’ Films >>> By J. Grant Swank Jr.

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Dutch Film to Slam Islam
WASHINGTON TIMES: BRUSSELS — Europe's uneasy relationship with its Muslim minority faces another blow next month, when Dutch politician Geert Wilders releases a 15-minute film that compares Islam to Nazism and communism.

The film is called "Fitna," an Arabic term for "discord." It intersperses verses of the Koran with footage of terrorist attacks and other Islamist-inspired violence.

"The film will show that the Koran isn't a dead work, but the face of Islam — a tremendous hazard," Mr. Wilders told the daily newspaper NRC Handelsblad.

He said the film calls the Koran "the latest test to Western democracies since Nazism and communism."

Mr. Wilders said the film will be finished tomorrow and will be posted on a Web site, www.fitnathemovie.com, when it airs on television.

Several Pakistani Internet providers tried this week to block YouTube on the orders of the government because it carried a movie trailer for the film. The effort caused a worldwide crash of the popular online site for sharing videos.

In recent years, other perceived insults to Islam in Europe have turned deadly.

Worldwide riots after the 2005 publication of editorial cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad left more than 100 people dead. Dutch Film to Slam Islam >>> By Leander Schaerlaeckens

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
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The Most Provocative Movie You’ve Never Seen

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
Mark Alexander (Hardback)

Wilders Promo/ Teaser on Anti-Koran Movie

Promo Movie 2:


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An Interview with Geert Wilders

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'I Don't Hate Muslims. I Hate Islam,' Says Holland's Rising Political Star
Photo of Geert Wilders courtesy of The Guardian
THE GUARDIAN: Geert Wilders, the popular MP whose film on Islam has fuelled the debate on race in Holland, wants an end to mosque building and Muslim immigration. Ian Traynor met him in The Hague

A TV addict with bleached hair who adores Maggie Thatcher and prefers kebabs to hamburgers, Geert Wilders has got nothing against Muslims. He just hates Islam. Or so he says. 'Islam is not a religion, it's an ideology,' says Wilders, a lanky Roman Catholic right-winger, 'the ideology of a retarded culture.'

The Dutch politician, who sees himself as heir to a recent string of assassinated or hounded mavericks who have turned Holland upside down, has been doing a crash course in Koranic study. Likening the Islamic sacred text to Hitler's Mein Kampf, he wants the 'fascist Koran' outlawed in Holland, the constitution rewritten to make that possible, all immigration from Muslim countries halted, Muslim immigrants paid to leave and all Muslim 'criminals' stripped of Dutch citizenship and deported 'back where they came from'. But he has nothing against Muslims. 'I have a problem with Islamic tradition, culture, ideology. Not with Muslim people.'

Wilders has been immersing himself in the suras and verse of seventh-century Arabia. The outcome of his scholarship, a short film, has Holland in a panic. He is just putting the finishing touches to the 10-minute film, he says, and talking to four TV channels about screening it.

'It's like a walk through the Koran,' he explains in a sterile conference room in the Dutch parliament in The Hague, security chaps hovering outside. 'My intention is to show the real face of Islam. I see it as a threat. I'm trying to use images to show that what's written in the Koran is giving incentives to people all over the world. On a daily basis Moroccan youths are beating up homosexuals on the streets of Amsterdam.'

Wilders is lucid and shrewd and the provactive soundbites trip easily off his tongue. He was recently voted Holland's most effective politician. If 18 months ago he sat alone in the second chamber or lower house in The Hague, his People's Party now has nine of 150 seats and is running at about 15 per cent in the polls. His Islam-bashing seems to be paying off. And not only in Holland. All across Europe, the new breed of right-wing populists are trying to revive their political fortunes by appealing to anti-Muslim prejudice. 'I don't hate Muslims. I hate Islam,' says Holland's rising political star >>> By Ian Traynor in The Hague

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Iran Wants European Law to Squelch Anti-Koran Film
REUTERS: Iran has urged the Netherlands to block a planned anti-Koran film, citing Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights as the legal basis for doing so. This is the latest twist in the saga surrounding the controversial film by far-right leader Geert Wilders (we’ve blogged on this before). In the letter, Iran’s Justice Minister Gholamhossein Elham asked his Dutch counterpart Ernst Hirsch Ballin to use European human rights law to stop a European from exercising one of those most basic rights. Freedom of expression has been the rallying cry of those who defended the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten for publishing the Mohammad cartoons — and republishing the most controversial one (the turban bomb) this week after a death threat against the artist who drew it.

This also raises the question of whether any protest against purported blasphemy against Islam this time might not turn out to be on the streets, as after the Danish caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad, but in the courts. European Muslim organisations brought court suits against the cartoons in Denmark and in France but lost their cases — thanks to the principle of freedom of expression. Will the Iranian letter inspire any to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg? Nota bene — Danish imams preached calm at Friday prayers, in contrast to the imams who went to the Middle East to rally opposition to the cartoons when they first came out. Iran wants European law to squelch anti-Koran film >>> By Tom Heneghan

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Arab States Lobby Against Dutch Anti-Islam Film
Image courtesy of Klein Verzet
EARTH TIMES: Valletta, Malta ­ Arab states attending the European Union- Arab League meeting in Malta on Tuesday lobbied the Dutch government against a highly controversial anti-Islam film about to be released in the Netherlands. The foreign ministers of Syria, Egypt and Morocco spoke against the film with Dutch State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment Ahmed Aboutaleb, a Muslim himself, at the ministerial meeting that ended Tuesday, The Times of Malta reported.

Dutch far right leader Geert Wilders is behind the 15-minute film (Fitna), which according to advance reports denounces the Koran as a fascist book and claims it incites people to murder. Arab states lobby against Dutch anti-Islam film >>> By DPA

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Dutch Soldiers at Risk over Geert Wilders’ Anti-Koran Film
This is ridiculous! Geert Wilders has no need to “besmirch the Koran." The Koran speaks for itself. Read it!

THE TELEGRAPH: Dutch soldiers serving with Nato in Afghanistan will face new threats if their country allows the broadcast of an anti-Islamic film, Bozorgmehr Ziaran, Iran's ambassador to the Netherlands, has said.

He announced his intention to rally global Muslim opinion against plans by Geert Wilders, the maverick Dutch MP, to show a short movie attacking the Koran.

Mr Ziaran also fuelled fears of a violent backlash by issuing a veiled threat that Dutch troops would be regarded as "representatives of people who besmirch the Koran".

"Afghans will view these troops as there to take our power, to destroy us and to ruin our values," he told De Volkskrant newspaper.

But Mr Wilders, the controversial leader of the anti-immigration Dutch Freedom Party (PVV) has vowed to ignore "daily death threats" and pressure from the authorities by broadcasting his film next month on the Koran, which he compares to Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf.

"The serious threats to my life and the Dutch government's panicked response to my film underline the truth of what I am saying. The Koran is dangerous," he said.

"I am human so I sometimes feel real fear but I will not let the politics of fear stop me from saying what must be said." Dutch soldiers 'at risk' over anti-Koran film: >>> By Joan Clements in The Hague and Bruno Waterfield

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