Indonesian protesters call for death of Dutch anti-Islam filmmaker
Last Updated: Monday, March 31, 2008 | 11:04 AM ET
CBC News
Outcry over a Dutch politician's anti-Islam film continued Monday, with hard-line Muslims in Indonesia calling for the man's death.
A group of about 40 demonstrators from the Islamic Defenders Front gathered outside the Dutch Embassy in Jakarta, some of them carrying placards saying "Kill Geert Wilders," the film's creator.
A Pakistani woman gestures next to a burning effigy of Dutch politician Geert Wilders during a protest in Karachi Sunday against his recent film that portrays Islam as a ticking time bomb.
(Fareed Khan/Associated Press)
"It is a great insult to all Muslims," said the group's spokesman Soleh Mahmud, who admitted he has not seen the film but was outraged nonetheless.
"The Dutch government must arrest him. Wilders must be killed because he has declared war on Muslims."
In neighbouring Malaysia, the Foreign Ministry described the film as disrespectful and insensitive, while the opposition Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party has sent a note to the Dutch Embassy, saying the movie would "invite vengeance" from Muslims if was not retracted.
Calls for Dutch boycott
The party urged Muslims "all over the world" to boycott Dutch products in protest, echoing a similar call by former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad this weekend.
"We hope the protests by Muslims all around the world can be taken as our disapproval against any insult and attempts to deceive the world of the true picture of Islam," the party's youth leader, Salahuddin Ayub, said in a statement.
Dozens of Islamists in Pakistan have also protested the 15-minute film Fitna — the Qur'anic term for "strife" — which was released Thursday night on the internet by right-wing Dutch legislator Geert Wilders after broadcasters in the Netherlands refused to show it.
The film quotes verses of the Qur'an alongside footage of the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, at times showing graphic footage of bloody, mutilated bodies set to music, and even a beheading of a Caucasian man by men garbed in black.
"The government insists that you respect Islam, but Islam has no respect for you. Islam wants to rule, submit, and seeks to destroy our Western civilization," says text appearing near the film's end that eventually calls on Europeans to defeat the ideology of Islam.
The film ends with a caricature of Muhammad, his head drawn in the shape of a bomb that explodes into a crack of thunder and lightning.
'Against all human values': Sudan president
Speaking at an Arab summit in Damascus Saturday, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir called on Muslims to "challenge those who insult" the Prophet and proposed "a binding international charter" calling for the respect of religious beliefs.
"The offences against our Arab and Islamic nations under the banner of freedom of expression are derogatory and defamatory and go against all human values," al-Bashir said.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit called Wilders's film "a humiliation" to Islam.
Some Muslims, including the chairman of the moderate National Moroccan Council, Mohamed Rabbae, have called for protesters to exercise restraint and refrain from violence.
Wilders — a well-known anti-Islamist who has called for a stop to immigration from Muslim countries and a halt to the building of new mosques in his country — has said he's not against Muslims but against their faith.
With files from the Associated Press
