Dutch filmaker critical of Islam killed.

[Ghostbuster]

Is criticising Islam such a taboo that the person doing it needs to killed?
What do muslims on this board have to say about this?

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,137336,00.html

Dutch Filmmaker, Islam Critic Murdered
Tuesday, November 02, 2004

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A filmmaker who was the great-grandnephew of the painter Vincent van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death on an Amsterdam street Tuesday after receiving death threats over a movie he made criticizing the treatment of women under Islam.

A suspect, a 26-year-old man with dual Dutch-Moroccan nationality, was arrested after a shootout with officers that left him wounded, police said.

Filmmaker Theo van Gogh (search), 47, had been threatened after the August airing of the movie "Submission," which he made with a right-wing Dutch politician who had renounced the Islamic faith of her birth.

Police had kept watch on Van Gogh's house as protection immediately after the film's release, but it was dropped because there was no concrete evidence of a threat, public prosecutor Leo de Wit said.

In a recent radio interview, Van Gogh — who is the great-grandson of the brother of Vincent van Gogh, who was also named Theo — dismissed the threats and called the movie "the best protection I could have. It's not something I worry about."

Authorities had felt the more likely target of revenge attacks was the film's writer, Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali (search), a member of parliament who frequently has outraged fellow Muslims by criticizing Islamic customs and the failure of Muslim families to adopt Dutch ways. She has been and remains under police protection.

[Ray]

I also heard it on CNN and BBC.

What intolerance to face the reality and if that is not the reality, to give a rebut.

Disgusting, to say the least.

[tarek]

Religion of peace and tolerance? You be the judge

[smilingassassin]

Religion of peace and tolerance? You be the judge

It does seem to be the opposite it claims to be...

[Samudra]

Why not ask the local mosque maulvi to issue fatwa on the killers ?

[ChrisF202]

IMO this is a disgraceful act, espically 2 years after Pim Forytun was killed for belive in the same things as this man. The killer was so sick that he sat on the ground next to the body to make sure he was dead and then shot at the cops, wounding one before he was shot and captured himself. Let justice be served and I wish a speedy recovery to the injured policeman.

[mostlymad]

It does seem to be the opposite it claims to be...

In how it's practiced, yes. What gets me as well is another opposite some extremeist muslims practice: allow us freedom to practice our religion, as we wish, even in other countries where our religion violates your civil laws.....yet, within these same groups, people are not allowed to practice religion of their choice, or practice Islam in their own way, often under threat of death.

Link to a courageous ex-muslim woman facing death threats as well. (Lovely lady!)

Ayaan Hirsi Ali

[tarek]

Mostly

It's the same sort of line of reasoning the communists used to use - the communists used to argue that the so caled capitalists will even sell the communists the rope with which communits will hang the so caled capitalists - radical Islamists have a version of the same line, the demand "rights", the same "rights" they deny all others, including those Muslims who disagree with them. It's with these "rights" that they seek to undermine the very societies that afford the liberty to practice what they pass off as Islam to the unsuspecting and innocent.

[mostlymad]

It's with these "rights" that they seek to undermine the very societies that afford the liberty to practice what they pass off as Islam to the unsuspecting and innocent.

I follow you. We can see it beginning to happen in Canada. Mind boggling how so few people see the danger.

[tarek]

Man rescues son from madrassa ‘jail’

* Qari chained and tortured boy for 15 days

Staff Report

LAHORE: A man recovered his 14-year-old son on Tuesday night from a madrassa where his teacher had chained and tortured him for the last 15 days.

The victim’s father, Sardar Muhammad Sadiq, submitted an application with the South Cantt police station to register a case against the teacher.

Around a month ago, Mr Sadiq admitted his son, Hasan, to a madrassa in Nishter Colony for learning the Quran.

A couple of weeks ago, madrassa students were brought to a house in Gulberg to recite the Quran. After completing the recitation, Hasan went to his house, which was only a short distance away, for a brief visit and missed the ride back to the madrassa with the rest of students. Later, he went to the madrassa to explain his absence to his teacher Qari Ajmal who got infuriated. Qari Ajmal chained and severely tortured him, and then locked him in one of the madrassa rooms.

Mr Sadiq visited the madrassa on Tuesday to see his son, who he found chained and locked in a room. His body was badly bruised. Mr Sadiq took his son to the South Cantt police station to file a complaint and later went to Services Hospital with South Cantt police officials for Hasan’s medical treatment and a medico-legal report.

Dr Muhammad Ishfaq, the medical officer at Services Hospital, confirmed in his report that Hasan had been severely tortured.

“We received the medical reports and have registered a case against Qari Ajmal,” said Sub-inspector Muhammad Bashir, who is investigating the case. No arrest had been made till this report was made.

[Gio]

Was reading a dutch blog, it's amazing to see so much political corectness after a murder, why not talk about the issue. I can't imagine this happening here:

CLUELESS IN ROTTERDAM

Roger has asked me to translate what happened here. I checked the various Dutch online news sources and apparently Dutch police forces have been given instructions from high up the command chain to take on any expression that could lead to violence, riots or whatever. In that spirit they forced an artist to take down a street mural with the words “Thou Shall not Kill”. The following apparently happened:

A Rotterdam artist, Chris Ripke, made a mural to express his disgust over Van Gogh’s killing. A beautiful artwork with an angel in it and the words Thou Shalt Not Kill.

Chris is an artist with a lot of integrity, he made some good stuff near Angelo Betti’s pizzeria. His workshop is right next to the mosque on Insulinde Street. The mosque considered the text “Thou Shalt Not Kill” inflammatory. So he called Ivo Opstelten (editor’s note: mayor of Rotterdam, same political party as Hirsi Ali, right-of-center liberal). As a local TV journalist I went over to film what was going on.

I was immediately asked not to film because it would give too much tension in the neighborhood. I was in the middle of a discussion when a car arrived to spray the artwork. I could not bear that and decided to stand in front of it (I am a bit Rushdie like).

After a scuffle with the police I got arrested. I am free again but the artwork is gone and I really fail to see what Opstelten is thinking. My colleague Mireille was forced by police to wipe part of her video tape.

What a country, it’s unbelievable.

Both Chris and I have spent decades working with Turkish and Moroccan children/adults to try to involve them in our activities. What a rigid government. What a beautiful statement: Thou Shalt Not Kill. Something more universal doesn’t exist. But you can’t put that on wall!

I am furious.

My interpretation: the shock to the Dutch system is so dramatic that a lot of people are totally clueless and have no idea how to deal with the situation. Today the Dutch cabinet declared war on Muslim terror in the country which is definitely positve news, but an attitude change throughout the various layers of Dutch government will take a lot of time. Let's see how quickly they can adapt to the new world. My sense is that after the right picked up this issue a few years back the Dutch left is rapidly coming to its senses, this affair has really hit a nerve. More later.

http://www.peaktalk.com/archives/000857.php

[smilingassassin]

Simply mind boggling.....

[Lucien LaCroix]

Islam is and will continue to be a threat to the world so long as it defies self-examination of its tenets by its followers. It has been said that most Muslims are peaceful, caring, and loving people. Unfortunately, that is not the issue. In the birthplace of Islam, you have religious schools who are unabashed in their teaching of hatred and intolerance. And those Muslims that do not subscribe to a radical interpretation of the Quran act as sheep--too afraid or too indifferent to modify their faith's path. As such, they are equally responsible for the faith-based tragedies being visited upon the non-Muslim peoples of the world.

Their unwillingness to confront evil even in its most obvious forms is why there is no freedom in the Middle East (and why the experiment in democracy for Iraq will ultimately fail). For most Muslims, freedom is an abstract concept. For them freedom is simply having a life that involves less torture at the hands of their government or religious police. Even the most "moderate" of Muslim-dominated nations have an intolerance for dissent. You only have to utter an unfavorable remark in public about that particular country's leaders to have a demonstration of the truth of the previous statement.

When you have a person's existence so intertwined with a religous dogma that it turns them either into bullies or people who cower under their kitchen tables every night, then it becomes a very dangeorus thing to allow them to immigrate to free nations. It's as the Dutch filmmaker communicated in his judgment about Muslims failing to assimilate. Many Muslims don't emigrate from Arab/Islamic lands to become good Dutch, Americans, French, Canadians, or Brits, etc. They do so to be safe Muslims--to allow the shield of protection created by the courage and bloodshed brought about by the self-sacrifice of others to keep them safe. Once in their new country, nothing changes for them. There is no appreciation of what it took to create the society that affords them such safety. They reject their former countries (but not their culture) while failing to embrace their new countries. Such is the manner of any immigrant who refuses to assimilate. In America, such a mindset is embodied by "Give us your Blockbuster Video Stores, hospitals, and highway systems--and to hell with your culture." A good example of that mindset here in Florida happened when the Cuban national soccer team visited a few years ago to play a match against an American team. The stadium was packed by Cubans who had fled Castro's Cuba in the past 20 years. And in the stadium's bleachers flew...not thousands of American flags...but thousands of Cuban flags. And after the game, many of them went back to their Cuban enclaves in South Florida (also known by Floridians as "North Cuba") to play dominoes and wait for Castro to die--because they never had the guts to take him on.

When you allow such a mentaility to settle in your nation--a mixture of false pride, ethnic arrogrance, and intellectual cowardice--then you are introducing a dangerous pathogen into an otherwise healthy host. Many of these new citizens freely accept the socialist spending tendancies in so many countries because they are used to having the government in control of their lives. Sadly, life has taught them nothing. And they contaminate their societies in a very slow but inexorable process that drains the culture, spirit, and life from a country. That is not to say there are not exception to this sort of thing, but the exceptions are those who come here (and in other free nations) looking for something more than food in their bellies every day and the absence of the lash.

The only real solution to the problem of radical Islam is to confine all of Muslim adherents to that region of the world. I realize that is a very controversial statement. But until the citizenry of Islamic countries learn that freedom and safety aren't free; until they learn that self-sacrifice is about taking the fight to your enemies, not simply standing there in fear; then Islam will remain a very dangerous threat to Western societies--in one form or another.

[ChrisF202]

Many Muslims don't emigrate from Arab/Islamic lands to become good Dutch, Americans, French, Canadians, or Brits, etc. They do so to be safe Muslims--to allow the shield of protection created by the courage and bloodshed brought about by the self-sacrifice of others to keep them safe. Once in their new country, nothing changes for them. There is no appreciation of what it took to create the society that affords them such safety. They reject their former countries (but not their culture) while failing to embrace their new countries. Such is the manner of any immigrant who refuses to assimilate.

Exactly, this is the reason why we should restrict and monitor Islamic immigration until we can sort this whole War of Terrorism situation. The situation is also similar with the Hispanics who flee from Mexico, Cuba, El Salvador, etc.

[Ray]

The problem with Moslems living in secular countries or countries where they are not a majority is that a large majority don't like to integrate with the local culture.

There are also other relgious groups and commnities who emigrate and still keep their cultural identities. However, the difference is that they don't flaunt their distinctiveness brazenly and hence don't appear a threat to the majority culture.

The case of the Dutch police and the street mural is most astonishing.