Geert Wilders’ Film on Islam Stirs Up the Netherlands
SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Déjà vu in Holland: A Dutch politician plans to release a film that rips the Koran for promoting violence and intolerance. Politicians and Muslim leaders alike are afraid of a repeat of 2004, when filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam.

A Dutch politician's plan to release a film that charges the Koran with promoting violence and intolerance has sparked controversy in the Netherlands. Government officials are distancing themselves from the project and stepping up security at home and at embassies abroad, while Muslim leaders fear that it could strain relations between the Dutch and their large Muslim immigrant population.

Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing Freedom Party, says he will release a 10-minute-long film on Friday that shows how the Koran is used by Islamic radicals to promote homophobia, the abuse of women and violence. The film was slated to debut on Jan. 25 but as of last Friday Wilders had not found a Dutch broadcaster willing to air it. If he can not find one by Friday, he says he will post it on the Internet.

As Wilders searched for a broadcaster last week, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende urged Wilders to exercise restraint. "The Netherlands has a tradition of freedom of speech, religion and beliefs," said Balkenende according to the Associated Press. "The Netherlands also has a tradition of respect, tolerance and responsibility. Unnecessarily offending certain groups does not belong here."

Balkenende said that cities in the Netherlands were on alert for potential protests in response to the film, and diplomats abroad were briefed on responding to potential animosity. Another Anti-Koran Film Stirs Up Holland >>> By Patrick McGroarty

SIOE (Stop the Islamization of Europe)
SIOE (Netherlands)

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
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Dutch Government Ready for Wilders’ Film Fall-Out
DUTCH NEWS: Government security experts have drawn up a 20-page document detailing how to deal with the expected fall-out of the anti-Koran film being made by MP Geert Wilders, the Volkskrant reports on Friday.

The paper says the document, marked 'state secret' has been circulated to need-to-know ministers only.

There are also instructions for diplomatic staff so that they will be ready to deal with protests and embassy evacuation plans have been drawn up, the paper says.

Ambassadors in Islamic countries are currently talking to their contacts about the film. While stressing that freedom of speech is an important in the Netherlands, they are also making it clear that Wilders’ opinions are not shared by the government, the paper says.

The film is due to be screened at the end of the month. [Source: Government ready for Wilders’ film fall-out]

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Dutch Government Fears Violence over Geert Wilders’ Film
Photo of Geert Wilders courtesy of Google Images
THE GUARDIAN: 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.

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. Violence fear over Islam film: Counter-terrorism alert as a Dutch right-winger launches a movie that will denounce the Koran >>> By Jason Burke, Europe editor

AFP:
Unease in the Netherlands over MP’s planned anti-Islam film

Geert Wilders:
Geert Wilders’ official website (in Dutch)

Mark Alexander (Paperback)
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