Tag: Netherlands

The Taliban — a hate group consisting of despicable barbarians who have deluded themselves into thinking they represent true Islam — have warned of a possible terrorist attack against the Netherlands, according to a press report Monday, in the wake of the government’s decision to form a minority government backed by the anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders.

‘If the Netherlands enforce its anti-Islamic policies, it will ensure that they will be the target of an attack by a jihadist group,’ Taliban spokesman Sabiullah Mujahid told the de Volkskrant newspaper.

Prosecutors in the hate speech case against Dutch politician Geert Wilders on Tuesday requested the court drop charges of insulting Muslims from the list of crimes being considered.

Although prosecutors would continue pushing for a conviction on charges of discrimination and inciting hatred against Muslims, they said incendiary statements Wilders had made about the Koran and Islam could not be construed as a direct insult to people of the Muslim faith.

Dutch anti-Islamist politician Geert Wilders, who plays a controversial but pivotal role in the formation of a new Dutch government, went on trial on Monday for inciting hatred against Muslims.

Wilders is charged with inciting hate and discrimination against Muslims in comments he made in the media and for insulting Muslims by comparing the Islamic faith to Nazism.

An atheist preacher has been allowed to stay in office by the Protestant Church of the Netherlands.

The regional church assembly in the southwestern town of Zierikzee decided that preacher Klaas Hendrikse’s views do not fundamentally differ from those of other liberal theologians in the Protestant Church.

Citizens in the Dutch town of Amstelveen have condemned plans by local authorities to support a controversial Hindu festival that would involve praying to a Hindu goddess from India, in the heart of the town.

Local officials said the ‘India Diwali Festival’, or ‘Festival of Lights’, is part of a policy to accommodate the Indian community in Amstelveen, a European gateway for international companies due to its location near Schiphol Airport and key highways.

Five years ago bombings and riots fuelled anxiety that Europe’s Muslims were on the verge of mass radicalisation. Those predictions have not been borne out, The Observer writes.

Polls have found that Muslim communities are profoundly influenced by their countries of residence. French Muslims have absorbed the values of France, and are more secular than their German counterparts, for example.

Amsterdam – Exactly half of the Dutch are opposed to Wednesday’s decision of the appeal court in Amsterdam to prosecute MP Geert Wilders. A minority considers it right that he should be charged with incitement to hatred, discrimination and insulting Muslims as a group, pollster Maurice de Hond reported Friday.

Of all those polled, 66 percent consider that in general, MPs can exceed the boundaries of free speech when they are outside parliament – they have parliamentary immunity inside – and that prosecution should be possible in such cases. A third (33 percent) did not think MPs should ever be prosecuted for anything they say, and 1 percent had no opinion.