Author: Joan Clements in The Hague
and Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Publication: The Telegraphy (UK)
Date: June 18, 2002
The Dutch government has launched
a criminal inquiry into Muslim clerics accused of inciting violence from
mosques in Holland.
The unprecedented move by the Justice
Ministry comes after leading imams in Rotterdam, Amsterdam and The Hague
were caught secretly on tape calling for the "destruction of the enemies
of Islam" and encouraging Muslims to "disobey" Dutch law.
Inflammatory prayers at the El Tawheed
mosque in Amsterdam included recitations of "Allah make your enemies' lives
an unbearable Hell" and denunciations of President George W Bush and Ariel
Sharon, the Israeli prime minister.
Martyrdom was extolled at Amsterdam's
El Rahma mosque, where the imam allegedly said: "Female Palestinian Muslims
who offer their lives to Allah should be praised."
The lower house of the Dutch parliament
urged prosecution of the clerics after the tape was broadcast on national
television last week by Nova, a prime-time current affairs programme.
The wild rhetoric appeared to go
far beyond protected free speech, violating Article 6 of the Dutch constitution,
which guarantees freedom for all religions and "responsibility to uphold
the law of the land".
Jan Peter Balkenende, the Christian
Democrat leader and likely prime minister said incitement in the mosques
was "no longer acceptable". He swept the Left out of power last month pledging
to reverse the state policy of promoting multi-culturalism.
Some imams have taken advantage
of Holland's tolerant climate to preach radical politics at prayer time,
leading to a public outcry this year when one urged the death penalty for
homosexuals.
But this is the first time the authorities
have been handed "a smoking gun" in the form of a tape.
Marking a dramatic shift in Dutch
liberal sensibilities, both Left and Right are now calling for the expulsion
of imams engaging in "flagrantly unlawful" activities.
Boris Dittrich, leader of Holland's
fashionable Left-wing D'66 Liberal Party, said it was deplorable that radical
clerics could operate so easily in Holland, adding: "Imams guilty of incitement
to violence should immediately be expelled from Holland."
