A stale old porn movie is at the centre of a political row involving Dutch public television. Public broadcasting corporations VPRO and BNN are planning to screen Deep Throat, a 1972 vintage production, as part of a themed night on the history of pornographic films.

The city of Amsterdam, Netherlands, is making good on its promise to clean up its world-famous Red Light District. Plans to upgrade the 750-year-old neighborhood over the next ten years include banning window prostitution from all but two locations.

Hirsi Ali, the former Somali refugee, is one of the success stories of Dutch immigration policy, but also one of its fiercest critics. She condemns the Dutch tradition of multiculturalism, saying tolerance for the intolerant has provided a dangerous breeding ground for Islamic radicalism.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali condemns the Dutch tradition of multiculturalism — saying tolerance for the intolerant has provided a dangerous breeding ground for Islamic radicalism.

The sale of hallucinogenic magic mushrooms is about to be banned by the Dutch Government in the latest sign of a conservative backlash against Amsterdam’s relaxed attitude towards sex and drugs.

Thousands here spurn television, theater, movies and dancing. Many dress in black and attend three hours of church services on Sunday. And some refuse to immunize their children or buy insurance because they believe this interferes with the will of God.

Though the Netherlands is frequently the target of criticism by religious conservatives and the Vatican for its tolerant policies toward marijuana, prostitution and euthanasia, many Dutch are both socially permissive and highly religious.

A Dutch-Moroccan, one of the first Muslim cabinet ministers in Europe, said yesterday he hopes he is blazing a trail for others, but said Muslims must do more to dispel fears stoked by militant Islamists.

One of the first two Muslims appointed to a Dutch Cabinet post, Ahmed Aboutaleb calls himself a “foot soldier” in the cause of immigrant integration. And as a foot soldier, he expects to be a target, he said Wednesday.

An anti-immigrant Dutch lawmaker said Thursday the first Muslims ever appointed to Cabinet posts should be stripped of their jobs because they hold dual nationality.

Since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the United States and deadly bombings in London and Madrid, studies have focused on an intensifying clash between Europeans and a flood of immigrants who hold fast to their own cultures. But some say a new reality is emerging, even though many Europeans do not realize it.

The modern Dutch consensus is that making outlaws of prostitutes and soft-drug users only pushes them underground and into the hands of real criminals. Better to control and regulate such behaviors by legalizing–or in the case of cannabis, tolerating–the otherwise objectionable. The Dutch word for this is gedogen, which has no equivalent in English yet roughly means permitting what is officially illegal.

Amsterdam’s Red Light District will soon be home to a bronze statue in honor of prostitutes around the world.

The number of people in Holland who are deliberately uninsured on religious grounds doubled last year to around 11,000, the social insurance bank SVB said.

A group of brothel owners representing nearly a third of the windows prostitutes in Amersterdam’s famous Red Light District have filed legal protests against a city decision to revoke their licenses.

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