Imperial History of Israel and the Middle East

AMSTERDAM - Muslim nations on Friday condemned a film by a Dutch lawmaker that accuses the Koran of inciting violence, and Dutch Muslim leaders urged restraint.

Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party, launched his short video on the Internet on Thursday evening, prompting an al Qaeda-linked website to call for his death and increased attacks on Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan.

"The correct Sharia (Islamic law) response is to cut (off) his head and let him follow his predecessor, van Gogh, to hell," a member of Al-Ekhlaas wrote on the al-Qaeda affiliated forum, according to the SITE Institute, a U.S.-based terrorism monitoring service.

Dutch director Theo van Gogh, who made a film accusing Islam of condoning violence against women, was murdered by a militant Islamist in 2004.

Wilders' film "Fitna" -- an Arabic term sometimes translated as "strife" -- intersperses images of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and Islamist bombings with quotations from the Koran, Islam's holy book.

The film urges Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from the Koran and starts and ends with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb under his turban, accompanied by the sound of ticking.

The cartoon, first published in Danish newspapers, ignited violent protests around the world and a boycott of Danish products in 2006. Many Muslims regard any depiction of the Prophet as offensive.

"The film is solely intended to incite and provoke unrest and intolerance among people of different religious beliefs and to jeopardise world peace and stability," the 57-nation Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) said.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the film as "offensively anti-Islamic" and U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said it was "hateful".

Iran called the film heinous, blasphemous and anti-Islamic, and Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation and a former Dutch colony, said it was an "insult to Islam, hidden under the cover of freedom of expression".

The Saudi Arabian embassy in The Hague said the film was provocative and full of errors and incorrect allegations that could lead to hate towards Muslims, news agency ANP reported.

HEAVY GUARD

Dutch Muslim leaders appealed for calm and called on Muslims worldwide not to target Dutch interests. The Netherlands is home to about 1 million Muslims out of a population of 16 million.

"Our call to Muslims abroad is follow our strategy and don't frustrate it with any violent incidents," Mohammed Rabbae, a Dutch Moroccan community leader, told journalists in an Amsterdam mosque.

The Dutch Islamic Federation went to court on Friday to try to stop Wilders from comparing Islam to fascism.

Pollster Maurice de Hond found that only 12 percent of those questioned thought the film represented Islam accurately, but 43 percent agreed Islam was a serious threat to the Netherlands over the long term.

Wilders has been under guard because of death threats since the murder of van Gogh and Freedom Party support rose in anticipation of the film to about 10 percent of the vote.

The Dutch government has distanced itself from Wilders and tried to prevent the kind of backlash Denmark suffered over the Prophet cartoons.

Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he was proud of how Dutch Muslim organisations responded to the film but that it was too early to draw conclusions about the international consequences: "There are reasons for continued alertness."

NATO has expressed concern the film could worsen security for foreign forces in Afghanistan, including 1,650 Dutch troops. A Belgian government spokesman said security had been stepped up at Dutch diplomatic missions in the country.

Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard objected to the use of his drawing of the Prophet Mohammad, saying it was shown out of context and that he had taken legal action to have it removed.

SITE said responses to the Wilders film on al Ekhlaas and another al-Qaeda affiliated website, al Hesbah, were significantly lower in volume compared to the cartoons uproar.

Original Report Here

Muslim leaders in the Netherlands on Friday urged Muslims abroad to stay calm and be responsible after the release of a controversial anti-Islam film by Dutch farright MP Geert Wilders.

"We want to let our Muslim brothers abroad know that we are in the best position to analyse the situation in the Netherlands and Wilders and to how to react," said the head of the Dutch Moroccan National Council, Mohamed Rabbae.

"We call on them to follow our strategy and not react with attacks on Dutch embassies or tourists," he added, speaking at a joint press conference of Muslim community leaders at an Amsterdam mosque.

"An attack on the Netherlands is an attack on us," Rabbea said. "We feel offended by the link between violence and Islam but we know this guy (Wilders). The best response is a response in a responsible manner."

Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who condemned Wilders film shorlty after it was put on the Internet on Thursday, praised the Dutch Muslim organisations for the "dignified way" they have reacted to it.

Symbolically the Dutch joint press conference of Dutch Muslim organisations and religious leaders was held in the Elouma mosque in Amsterdams Slotervaart. It was in this neighbourhood, with a very high immigrant population, that Dutch Muslim radical Mohammed Bouyeri grew up

In 2004 Bouyeri shot and stabbed columnist and filmmaker Theo van Gogh who had directed a short film critical of Islams treatment of women. Official figures from 2006 put the number of Dutch Muslims at 850,000, or five percent of the overall population. Most Dutch Muslims, 38 percent, are of Turkish descent, while Moroccans make up 31 percent.

In Slotervaart on Friday only the many journalists congregating near the mosque broke the calm. Two neighbourhood social workers passing on bikes told AFP everything was normal. "Most people didnt even see the film," they added.

The film "Fitna" ("Discord" in Arabic), featuring violent imagery of extremist attacks which it linked to verses from the Koran, was posted on the British-based website liveleak.com on Thursday.

Muslim countries on Friday condemned the video and the Islamic government of Iran said the film showed some Westerners were waging a "vendetta" against Islam, warning of unspecified repercussions.

A coalition of Jordanian media said they would take Wilders to court over the film and launch a campaign to boycott Dutch products. They urged Arab leaders to review ties with Denmark and the Netherlands.

In Karachi, Pakistans largest city, about 40 supporters of the hardline Islamist party Jamaat-i-Islami protested, chanting "Death to the filmmaker" and demanding Pakistans government sever diplomatic ties with The Netherlands.

In the Netherlands the film was met with a sense of relief when it appeared not as harsh as some people had expected. There were fears that Wilders would destroy a copy of the Koran but that did not happen.

As they have done in the months preceding the broadcast of the film the Dutch government on Friday concentrated on damage control to minimise possible retaliation. The Dutch ministers for justice and integration met with immigrant and religious organisations in The Hague to discuss their feelings.

Prime Minister Balkenende had already tried to defuse the situation Thursday by issuing a statement condemning the film which he said "equates Islam with violence. We reject that interpretation." During the press conference in Slotervaart, Rabbea said he was pleased with the governments statement. "It clearly says that the opinion of Wilders is not that of the Netherlands," he explained.

Original Report Here

DAKAR, Senegal - The Muslim world has created a battle plan to defend its religion from political cartoonists and bigots.

Concerned about what they see as a rise in the defamation of Islam, leaders of the world's Muslim nations are considering taking legal action against those that slight their religion or its sacred symbols. It was a key issue during a two-day summit that ended Friday in this western Africa capital.

The Muslim leaders are attempting to demand redress from nations like Denmark, which allowed the publication of cartoons portraying the Prophet Muhammad in 2006 and again last month, to the fury of the Muslim world.

Though the legal measures being considered have not been spelled out, the idea pits many Muslims against principles of freedom of speech enshrined in the constitutions of numerous Western governments.

"I don't think freedom of expression should mean freedom from blasphemy," said Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade, the chairman of the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference. "There can be no freedom without limits."

Delegates were given a voluminous report by the OIC that recorded anti-Islamic speech and actions from around the world. The report concludes that Islam is under attack and that a defense must be mounted.

"Muslims are being targeted by a campaign of defamation, denigration, stereotyping, intolerance and discrimination," charged Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the secretary general of the group.

The report urges the creation of a "legal instrument" to crack down on defamation of Islam. Some delegates point to laws in Europe criminalizing the denial of the Holocaust and other anti-Semitic rhetoric. They also point to articles within various U.N. charters that condemn discrimination based on religion and argue that these should be ramped up.

"In our relation with the western world, we are going through a difficult time," Ihsanoglu told the summit's general assembly. "Islamophobia cannot be dealt with only through cultural activities but (through) a robust political engagement."

The International Humanist and Ethical Union in Geneva released a statement accusing the Islamic states of attempting to limit freedom of expression and of attempting to misuse the U.N.

Human Rights Watch said in a statement that objectionable depictions of the Prophet Muhammad do not "give them the right under international human rights law to insist that others abide by their views."

Hemayet Uddin, the lead author of the OIC report and head of cultural affairs for the group said legal action is needed because "this Islamophobia that we see in the world has gone far beyond a phobia. It is now at the level of hatred, of xenophobia, and we need to act."

A new charter drafted by the OIC commits the Muslim body "to protect and defend the true image of Islam" and "to combat the defamation of Islam."

To protect the faith, Muslim nations have created an "observatory" that meets regularly to monitor Islamophobia. It examines lectures and workshops taking place around the world and prints a monthly record of offensive content.

But some of the summit's delegates said a legal approach would be over the top.

"My general view would be that the confrontational approach is one my country would avoid," said Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Iftekhar Chowdhruy. Bangladesh is 90 percent Muslim.

While the Muslim world worries about the image of Islam in the West, the U.S. envoy to the OIC attended the summit to try to tackle the thorny question of America's image among Muslim states.

Sada Cumber calls his campaign the "soft power" of the U.S.