Popular Dutch lawmaker wants to close immigration to Muslims for 5 years
In his first interview to the foreign media since the slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh on Nov. 2, Wilders said his own life has been repeatedly threatened and he has begun living under state protection, and had to stay away from his own home.
Muslims make up about six per cent of the Netherlands' 16 million people. Wilders said he was concerned about studies saying some 10 per cent of Dutch Muslims - or about 100,000 people - support radical Islamic views.
Without swift, bold action, Islamic fundamentalism will topple the country's democratic system, he said.
"The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long," he said, "We should not import a retarded political Islamic society to our country. There is nothing to be ashamed of to say this. It's not Islam. I speak out against the facts."
Wilders said closing the borders isn't enough. Newcomers should be forced to integrate.
Mosques that advocate fundamentalism should be shut down, he said. "If in a mosque there is recruitment for jihad it's not a house of prayer, it's a house of war. If it's not a house of prayer, it should be closed down," he said.
The latest video threat broadcast on the Internet - in Dutch, with Arabic music in the background - condemns Wilders for insulting Islam and offers the reward of paradise for his beheading.
On Friday, he cited a report by Dutch intelligence saying recruitment for jihad is taking place in as many as 20 mosques in the Netherlands, and said they should be closed and their imams, or preachers, arrested and deported.
"If we don't do anything . . . we will lose the country that we have known for centuries," he said.
The lawmaker who made this "plan" is now having his life threatened by members of the religion of peace (or pieces as the case may be).
Excellent statement!