Category Archives: Netherlands

Violence against Muslims increases in Holland

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Geert WildersViolence against Muslims in the Netherlands rose considerably last year, according to the latest monitor on racism and extremism published by Leiden University and the Anne Frank Foundation on Wednesday.

The number of violent incidents against Muslims rose to 82 in 2007, from 62 in the preceding year. However the total number of racist attacks last year was down to 187, according to the 306-page report.

The Anne Frank Foundation says anti-Muslim sentiment has grown “significantly” in the last year and public opinion about Muslims has become more negative.

The researchers also point to the stream of anti-Muslim comments by the populist PVV party, led by the controversial member of parliament Geert Wilders. This, and the massive attention they are given in the media, has contributed to Islam phobia in the Netherlands, the foundation says.

The fact that the justice department decided not to prosecute those who made these anti-Muslim statements also played a role, say researchers Jaap van Donselaar and Peter Rodrigues.

The researchers also conclude that the PVV can be labelled as an extreme-right group because of, for example, its dislike of “strangers” and the political establishment and its tendency towards authoritarianism. The party also attracts more radical right-wing extremists.

Wilders is furious with the report. “They have gone completely mad. It is an insult to the PVV and our voters,” he told ANP news agency.

The arrival of the PVV has played a major part in changing the extreme-right climate in the country, according to the report. And the willingness of extreme right groups to take action has grown significantly. The number of demonstrations organised by extreme right-wing group is expected to rise to 20 this year from 12 in 2007.

Dutch News, 10 December 2008

See also “Islamophobia on the rise” on the website of the Anne Frank Museum.

It’s also worth noting that Wilders’ ally Ehsan Jami, who has made his own contribution to the rise of Islamophobia in the Netherlands, has just released his film Interview with Mohammed.

Wilders’ views on Islam merely ‘problematic’ says WSJ

Posted on by Bob Pitt

“To his admirers, Mr. Wilders is a champion of Western values on a continent that has lost confidence in them. To his detractors, he is an anti-Islamic provocateur. Both sides have a point.”

The Wall Street Journal carries a “balanced” appraisal of the Dutch far-right anti-Muslim racist Geert Wilders. The most the WSJ is prepared to concede is that Wilders’ views on Islam are “problematic”.

Netherlands bans niqab from colleges

Posted on by Bob Pitt

The Netherlands plans to ban face coverings worn by some Muslim women from universities, not only for students but also mothers and anyone else entering the grounds, the Education Ministry said Wednesday.

Education Minister Ronald Plasterk said in parliament that the planned ban, initially intended to apply only to the compulsory schooling system, would now also extend to tertiary education institutions, his spokesman told Agence France Presse. It would apply to pupils, teachers, cleaners and parents – all women who come through the gates of such institutions, said spokesman Freek Manche. “It will forbid any kind of garment that covers the face. The intention is to ensure that all people who communicate with each other on school grounds are able to look each other in the eye, to see each other’s faces,” he said.

Plasterk had initially intended the ban on garments such as the burka and nikab only for schools, citing the importance of children being able to recognize and identify others. “If you want to be present there (at school) as service provider, as parent, as teacher or as pupil, then you will have to let your face show,” the minister said when he initially announced the restrictions in September. “Freedom of religion must be weighed against the freedom of children to go to school in an environment where they can see each other’s faces.”

He hadn’t originally wanted to extend the ban to tertiary education, said the minister’s spokesman, “because this level of education is not compulsory. These are adults.” However, Plasterk had to adapt his plans on the insistence of a majority in parliament.

AFP, 26 November 2008

Douglas Murray supports ‘Muslim reformers’

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Victims of IntimidationWriting in the Sunday Times, Douglas Murray plugs his recent pamphlet Victims of Intimidation published by the right-wing think-tank, the laughably misnamed Centre for Social Cohesion.

And who are the so-called “moderate Muslim voices” whom Murray says governments should do more to support as an alternative to “radicals and radical-affiliated groups”? Well, here’s an example:

“Ehsan Jami, 23, the Dutch Labour party politician and founder of the Central Committee for Ex-Muslims, was repeatedly assaulted before being guarded by the Dutch police. He now requires constant protection but his own political party, instead of assisting his right to speak out about what he saw in the religion he was born into, tried to make him tone down his public statements about the treatment of women, apostates and homosexuals within Islam. Those like Jami who have left Islam are often treated, by our governments and broadcasters as much as by the Muslim communities, as though they are out of the discussion.”

First of all, there is no evidence that Jami was ever a practising Muslim, so it is difficult to see how he could have “left Islam”. He didn’t even study the Qur’an until after 9/11, and having done so he concluded that Islam provides the ideological inspiration for terrorism and violence. This has been the theme of his statements ever since. As for Jami’s so-called “Committee for Ex-Muslims”, it fell apart even before its official launch meeting because the co-founder of the organisation, Loubna Berrada, broke with Jami over his denunciations of Islam, and the Committee is now defunct.

Nor is Jami a “Dutch Labour party politician”. He was expelled by the PvdA after he co-authored an Islamophobic article with the Dutch far-right racist Geert Wilders which warned: “If we do not act now against the far-reaching Islamisation of the Netherlands, then the 1930s will be revived. The only difference is that back then the danger came from Adolf Hitler, while today it comes from Mohammed.”

This is not to excuse acts of violence, even against provocateurs like Jami, but Murray’s suggestion that Ehsan Jami is an example of the “Muslim reformers” with whom governments should seek to engage perfectly illustrates the ignorance and dishonesty of his pamphlet.

And while we’re on the subject of Jami, he was in the UK last month to attend a conference organised by the fraudulent “Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain”, a front organisation for the Islamophobic far-left sect the Worker-Communist Party of Iran.

Recently David Toube of Harry’s Place posted an article calling for a ban on Yasir Qadhi entering the UK, on the basis that he had made hostile comments about Shias. But did Toube raise any objections to Jami being allowed into the country? Of course he didn’t. As in Murray’s case, Toube’s pious expressions of concern for the welfare of minorities within the Muslim community are just a smokescreen for his own efforts to incite hostility towards Muslims and their representative organisations.

‘We are losing Europe to Islam’ – US political commentator says far right is the answer

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Diana WestSo claims US columnist Diana West. But don’t give up hope, all is not lost:

“Of the parties dedicated to resisting Islamization that I examined in Europe last summer, the most promising range from the sizeable Vlaams Belang in Belgium to the tiny Sweden Democrats, and include the Lega Nord in Italy, the Party for Freedom of Geert Wilders in Holland, the Danish People’s Party, the Swiss People’s Party and the Austrian Freedom Party.

“Such parties are unknown here, or ignored. Worse, they are shunned. Why? I believe it’s because their respective political opponents – the leftist media and governing establishments that are increasingly dependent on Islamic support, by the way – have successfully slandered these parties as ‘extremists’, ‘racists’, ‘fascists’ and ‘Nazis’.

“Is advocating freedom of speech ‘extreme’ or ‘fascist’? Is opposing Islam’s law, which knows no race, ‘racist’? Is supporting Israel (which these parties do far more than other European parties) ‘Nazi’? The outrageously empty epithets of the Islamo-socialist left seem calculated to stop thought cold and trigger a massive rejection reflex. In this way, resistance becomes anathema, and Islamic law, unchecked, spreads across Europe.”

TownHall.com, 18 September 2008

Vlaams Belang, to take just one example of the far-right parties that West endorses, is the successor organisation to the Vlaams Blok which formally disbanded in 2004 after being successfully prosecuted for “incitement to hate and discrimination”. It can trace its origins back to Nazi collaborators in the Second World War who assisted the occupation forces in sending thousands of Belgian Jews to their deaths.

Israeli MP forms anti-Islam coalition

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Arieh EldadA new front being formed by representatives of the Israeli Right and European lawmakers is threatening to ignite flames of hatred. Knesset Member Arieh Eldad (National Union-National Religious Party) announced Wednesday that he would be hosting a convention in Jerusalem under the banner, “Standing Up to Jihad.”

“The spread of Islam threatens the foundations of Western civilization,” he explained, and screened a scene from a film produced by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, which sparked a row in the Arab world several months ago and was banned in many places in Europe.

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Anti-Islamic movement hits the rocks

Posted on by Bob Pitt

SIOE NederlandAn attempt to set up a pan-European anti-Islam movement is in tatters after its launch activities turned into a series of disasters and its two main components in Denmark and the Netherlands split up.

Stop Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) was founded in 2007 after Stop Islamisation of Denmark (SIAD), led by Anders Gravers, had experienced momentary success in the wake of the controversy over the publication of anti-Islamic cartoons in a regional newspaper in September 2005.

Gravers and Stephen Gash from the UK became SIOE’s official spokesmen, believing it would act as a springboard for a wider European campaign this spring even though similar anti-Islamic groups were active only in the Netherlands. SIOE planned several anti-Islam demonstrations but few took place and the intended large rallies turned out to be no more than small gatherings in the Netherlands and Denmark.

On 26 January 2008, Gravers spoke at a poorly attended demonstration in Amsterdam. This was followed by two demonstrations in Denmark, on 14 March in Hobro and on 15 March in Aalborg, attended by Martin and Monique van der Hulst from SIOE Netherlands and the notorious Dutch nazi Ben van der Kooi.

Van der Kooi’s presence is interesting. His participation in demonstrations split SIOE in the Netherlands because of objections to cooperation with a known extremist. Others in SIOE were unperturbed and organised another demonstration in Amsterdam, but called it off when few people turned up.

The final demonstration was to be on 31 May in the heart of Copenhagen. By then the rot had set in but the grandiose plans for the day included speakers from Britain and Norway and rabble bussed in from all over Denmark to vent their anti-Islam spleen.

As in Amsterdam, the demonstration was, most embarrassingly, called off. The official reason was that Gash, the main speaker, had “been prevented” from taking part. A more likely reason is that anti-racist groups were organising a large counter-demonstration.

That was the least of SIOE’s headaches because it emerged that, days after the failure of the Amsterdam activity on 5 April, SIOE Netherlands had withdrawn from European cooperation, denouncing Gravers as an authoritarian who routinely ignores criticism from SIOE members.

Searchlight, August 2008

Mosques increasingly not welcome

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Cologne mosque protestEuropeans are increasingly lashing out at the construction of mosques in their cities as terrorism fears and continued immigration feed anti-Muslim sentiment across the continent.

The latest dispute is in Switzerland, which is planning a nationwide referendum to ban minarets on mosques. This month, Italy’s interior minister vowed to close a controversial mosque in Milan.

Some analysts call the mosque conflicts the manifestation of a growing fear that Muslims aren’t assimilating, don’t accept Western values and pose a threat to security. “It’s a visible symbol of anti-Muslim feelings in Europe,” says Danièle Joly, director of the Center for Research in Ethnic Relations at the University of Warwick in England. “It’s part of an Islamophobia. Europeans feel threatened.”

The disputes reflect unease with the estimated 18 million Muslims who constitute the continent’s second-biggest religion, living amid Western Europe’s predominantly Christian population of 400 million, Joly says. The clashes also represent a turnaround from the 1980s and ’90s, when construction of large mosques was accepted and even celebrated in many cities. “I think the tide has turned,” Joly says.

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Netherlands: 65% support ban on large mosques

Posted on by Bob Pitt

According to a large survey prepared by TV program Netwerk and newspaper Nederlands Dagbald, 65% of the Dutch ‘agree’ or ‘completely agree’ that there should be a stop to the building of large mosques.

Most Dutch are concerned about the growth of Islam in the Netherlands and its influence on society.  At the same time, a majority are also concerned about the negative manner in which Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom (PVV) speak about Islam.

59% of the Dutch think that in 40 years Islam would be at least as an important aspect of the Netherlands as Christianity is today.  57% say the increase in the number of Muslims threatens Dutch culture, and 53% say it threats freedom of religion.

The concern about Islam crosses political boundaries.  56% of Labor Party voters, 65% of Socialist Party voters, 67% of Christian Union voters and 87% of Political Reformed Party (SGP) voters, support stopping the building of large mosques.

Islam in Europe, 5 June 2008