Free Republic

Italy's Rai state TV is to become the latest broadcaster to show excerpts from murdered director Theo van Gogh's controversial film Submission. The Raidue channel will screen four to five minutes of the 11-minute film in its Thursday night news magazine. The film is critical of the treatment of women under Islam. Its screening on Dutch TV last year is thought to have led to Van Gogh's murder in November. Clips have since been shown by two Danish stations, sparking Muslim anger. Earlier this year, Submission was withdrawn from the Rotterdam Film Festival because of security fears. Last week, politicians...

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - A Dutch-Moroccan charged with the murder of a filmmaker critical of Islam probably had accomplices, prosecutors said on Wednesday, as the man appeared in public for the first time since his arrest last November. Mohammed Bouyeri, 27, injured in a gun battle with police, was on crutches. His only remarks were to reject allegations his brother triedto help him smuggle a document out of jail. Theo van Gogh, a descendant of the brother of 19th century Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh, was gunned down as he cycled to work inAmsterdam on November 2. He begged for mercy...

U.N. Calls for Combating 'Defamation' of Islam Tue Apr 12, 2005 10:46 AM ET By Stephanie Nebehay GENEVA (Reuters) - The United Nations Commission on Human Rights called on Tuesday for combating defamation of religions, especially Islam, and condemned discrimination against Muslims in the West's war on terrorism. The 53-member state forum adopted a resolution, presented by Pakistan on behalf of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), deploring the intensification of a "campaign of defamation" against Muslims following the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States. Western countries, including the United States and European Union (EU), voted against the...

The latest news coming from our friends in the Netherlands about sending a commando force to Afghanistan to work alongside U.S. and British soldiers is very good news. I understand the Netherlands is not going to stomp out terrorism on its own, but it shows that the Dutch people are looking to do more in worldwide fight against terrorism. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) has an excellent piece on the Dutch Intelligence’s examination of the radical Islamic threat within its country. The result has been to question Netherlands’ culture of "gedoogcultuur," or “culture of permissiveness,” which has helped...

What is happening to Holland that once stood as the shining light of tolerance and religious freedom? A country that the entire world admired for its courageous protection of Jews and other persecuted people during World War II? It would appear that Holland has forgotten its own history. In a series of attempts to discourage immigration from Third World countries, the Dutch have introduced a legislative proposal that would require some potential immigrants to take an examination to prove that they have an understanding of the Dutch language and culture. This applies to individuals who marry a Dutch citizen or...

ROTTERDAM, February 7 (IslamOnline.net) – Two European films shown at the 34th Rotterdam international film festival caused quite a stir among cinema critics and the audience. Reason? Presenting anti-western attacks by extremists as a retaliation for the mounting hate and persecution campaigns targeting Muslims in the West in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. An Arab film critic hailed the two movies as “a way more effective than bullets to expose the unjust practices” perpetrated by some Western governments against their Muslim communities. Scottish movie “Yasmin”, directed by Kenny Glenaan, blamed the “racism” of British authorities in dealing with Muslims...

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - Prosecutors opened their case Monday against 12 men accused of belonging to a terror network suspected in the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh and plots to attack prominent Dutch politicians. The defendants, mostly young Muslims of North African ancestry, were arrested within days of Van Gogh's death on Nov. 2 - a killing that shocked the nation and triggered retaliatory attacks on Islamic sites. Van Gogh, a distant relative of painter Vincent Van Gogh, was shot and stabbed on a busy Amsterdam street. The killer cut his throat and, in a note pinned to the...

AMSTERDAM — A public prosecutor told a high-security court in Amsterdam on Wednesday that terrorism is now a reality in the Netherlands. The murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, he said, was a catalyst to drive a wedge between different sections of Dutch society. Prosecutor Frits van Straelen said letters and electronic surveillance pointed to a link between the suspected killer and 11 other Muslim men who are in custody on terrorist charges. Their cases are being kept separate from the Van Gogh murder trial. But it was clear, he said, that a small number of Muslim men had decided...

Rotterdam, The Netherlands -- The 34th International Film Festival Rotterdam opens here tomorrow with 14 films vying for the top Tiger Awards and special attention given to new talent. Featured during the 10-day festival focusing on independent, creative and experimental filmmaking will be three films by Theo van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker murdered by a suspected Muslim extremist in November. Tight security is planned when his film Submission, which deals with Islam and the abuse of women, is aired. The film caused an uproar in the Muslim community when it was shown on Dutch TV in August. Not long afterward,...

Ayaan Hirsi Ali Asks Whether Koran Absolutism is Appropriate for Contemporary WorldMs. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the refugee from Somalia who has forsworn Islam while becoming a political scientist in the Netherlands and later a member of the Dutch Tweede Kamer (Lower House) representing the Liberal Party (VVD), has come out of protective hiding by appearing for work at the Binnenhof, the seat of parliament in The Hague, on Tuesday the 18th of January. Ms. Hirsi Ali was forced into hiding when the suspect in the murder of Theo van Gogh left behind a statement threatening her with death. It is...

THE HAGUE, Netherlands. Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born Dutch politician who went underground after the slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh last year, returned to her office in parliament Tuesday amid tight security after 10 weeks on a U.S. Marine base in Maine. Hirsi Ali wrote the script for Van Gogh's short television film "Submission" the last of his work to be aired before Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death on Nov. 2 which sharply criticized the treatment of women under Islam. Van Gogh was murdered on an Amsterdam street while cycling to work. An "Open Letter to...

AMSTERDAM — The allegations laid against the suspected murderer of Theo van Gogh have been expanded and he is now accused of preventing Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali from carrying out her work, a charge that carries a life sentence. The new charge is based on the letter that was left plunged into Van Gogh's body with a knife, warning that Hirsi Ali and several other politicians were next. Hirsi Ali subsequently went into hiding and has not since reappeared in Parliament. The intense security measures needed to ensure her safety — and which reportedly included her being flown by...

AMSTERDAM — Preparations are underway to establish a new political party to represent Muslims in the Netherlands, it was reported on Thursday. A group of Muslims in Amsterdam plan to launch the Muslim Democratic Party (MDP) in May and contest local elections in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague and Utrecht, according to their spokesman Mohammed Jabri. He told news agency ANP that the group was also looking at contesting the local election in a city in the province of North Brabant where a large number of Muslims live. Depending on how well the party grows, Jabri said it might contest the...

It is fitting that this was the year Yasser Arafat died. When the history of the war on terror is written, 2004 will be remembered as the moment when the romance of the terrorist finally faded away. Arafat was the romantic terrorist par excellence, the man who was given the podium of the U.N. General Assembly in 1974, just months after Palestinian gunmen had murdered 26 Israeli schoolchildren in Ma'alot. For the next three decades, an ever-broadening patch of the West came to see Arafat and his associates as militants, not terrorists, worthy of Nobel Prizes and White House overnights...

My kid, Dana, once told me, "Mom, if you don't get away from watching the news, you're going to have to get on medication." She is right; if I did not have my columns, speaking engagements and television show to blow off steam, I would be in big trouble. On good days, I head to the gym and try to work out the hostilities. It's not easy being a sex goddess. For the past few years, I've seen an older couple from Holland working out there, and from time to time, we would chat. That was until a year or...

THE HAGUE, December 13 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The Netherlands is mulling plans on compulsory courses for immigrants who have already been living in the country for years. Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk was facing a heated discussion of her new plans in parliament on Monday, December 12, though a decision is not expected for several weeks, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP). The Netherlands already makes integration classes mandatory for newcomers as laws have been changed to oblige all new immigrants and accepted asylum seekers to take classes in Dutch language and culture. The new plans would make everyone who...

AMSTERDAM—Novelist Yasmine Allas doesn't believe in happy endings. That's so despite her own unlikely road to success. The daughter of a wealthy army officer, she fled as a teenager from her repressive childhood in Somalia, where she had dreamed of becoming an actress, dating men, drinking wine and living the life she saw in movies. Now in the Netherlands, having gained an audience for her bleak stories of oppressed women and failed immigrants, she finds she still can't escape fear. Since the slaying of filmmaker Theo van Gogh last month in Amsterdam, there have been death threats against two prominent...

An exodus of native-born Dutch in search of a new life abroad has reversed immigration flows for the first time since the post-war era. Last year more people left the Netherlands than arrived as migrants or asylum seekers, even though unemployment remains low at 4.7 percent and per capita income is higher than any major country in Europe. Ellen and Peter Bles are planning to leave their home near Tilburg for Perth, Western Australia Lawyers, accountants, computer specialist, nurses, and businessmen are lining up for visas to the English-speaking world, looking to Australia, New Zealand and Canada as orderly societies...

Out of curiousity, as to what all the fuss about, I decided to follow the link in Ifilm to watch the film clip which got Vincent Van Gogh's great-grand-nephew Theo brutally murdered by a Dutch immigrant Moslem. I had heard Van Gogh's "Sumission" variously described in the News as provocative, inciting, and even pornographic--after all it got whole communities of "moderate" Moslems saying the film-maker "deserved it" after he was shot, stabbed and had his throat cut--with a note stabbed into his body. However in spite of such reactions, at risk to my eyes, I decided to see the film...

Printer-friendly format Dec. 4, 2004, 10:20PM Van Gogh slaying puts her in hiding Lawmaker who wrote the film's story vows to push for changeBy TOBY STERLINGAssociated Press AP Member of Dutch parliament for the Liberal Party, Ayaan Hirsi Ali speaks during a session in parliament in The Hague, The Netherlands, in this April 6, 2004 file photo. Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali plans a new film criticizing Islamic culture, despite the murder of her collaborator, filmmaker Theo van Gogh, and despite receiving death threats herself, a Dutch newspaper said. AMSTERDAM, NETHERLANDS - She inspires both admiration and rage, and...