Anti-Quran Film Fitna Pulled From Web Due to 'Threats'
By Jenna Wortham March 28, 2008 | 7:45:14
Wired Blog Network
Video-hosting site LiveLeak pulled the controversial anti-Quran film Fitna Friday afternoon, citing a barrage of threats.
The 17-minute film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, posted Thursday, received more than 3 million views before being taken offline. Fitna juxtaposes passages from the Islamic holy book with graphic footage of terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe. In one scene,the sound of paper ripping can be seen as a reader pages through the Quran.
Put together as a warning that Islam poses a threat to the Netherlands, Fitna includes newspaper headlines about terror attacks, graphic images of beheadings at the hands of Islamic radicals, and a riot-provoking Danish cartoon from 2005 that depicts the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban.
In place of the video Friday afternoon, a brief and poignant message appears on-screen: "Following threats to our staff of a very serious nature.... LiveLeak has been left with no choice but to remove Fitna from our servers.
"This is a sad day for freedom of speech on the net.... We would like to thank the thousands of people from all backgrounds and religions who gave us their support."
Wilders released the 17-minute film via LiveLeak despite concerns voiced by the Dutch government and international organizations.
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CNN Report: Mahathir urges Muslims to boycott Dutch products
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KLUANG, March 30 (Bernama) -- Barisan Nasional (BN) Youth has strongly condemned the release of the anti-Islam film Fitna by Dutch legislator Geert Wilders which it said clearly insulted Muslims worldwide.
BN Youth chairman Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Tun Hussein said the release of such a film was most saddening and added that it could incur the wrath of Muslims and create a dangerous situation.
Wilders had released the 15-minute film on the Internet on March 27, and has since drawn condemnation from both Islamic and non-Islamic groups.
"We are serious on matters of religion. In this matter, not only Umno Youth but the youth wings of the other BN component parties will not compromise," he told reporters after attending a meet-the-people session at the Ulu Belitong Felda scheme in Sembrong Saturday night.
Hishammuddin, who is the member of parliament for Sembrong, said Muslims could not accept the release of the film on the basis of freedom of expression because freedom of expression came with a sense of responsibility in ensuring that the people's feelings were not hurt.
"Those who talk about freedom of expression and other rights should know their limitations.
If the freedom of expression does not come with responsbility and any action hurts the religious sensitivities of people, I believe it will give rise to a dangerous situation," he said.
-- BERNAMA
Who is Geert Wilders?
Geert Wilders
Geert Wilders ; born 6 September 1963) is a Dutch politician. He has been a member of the Tweede Kamer (Dutch House of Representatives) since 1998, first for the liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy and from 2006 for the Party for Freedom, a party which he founded and of which he is the political leader.
Biography
Wilders was born in Venlo, Netherlands in the province of Limburg, where he was raised a Roman Catholic. He received his secondary education at the Mavo and Havo of the "R.K. St. Thomas College" in Venlo. He followed a health insurance course at the "Stichting Opleiding Sociale Verzekeringen" in Amsterdam and gained several Law certificates at the Dutch Open University. His father was a manager for the printing and copying manufacturing company Océ.
After working in the health insurance industry, Wilders became a parliamentary assistant to Frits Bolkestein in 1990, in that time keeping up a heavy travel schedule, including a visit to Tehran, Iran.
Wilders' wife is Hungarian.
In 1997, Wilders was elected for the VVD to the municipal council of Utrecht, the fourth largest city of the Netherlands. A year later, he was elected to the national parliament.
Political Career
In September 2004, Wilders left the liberal People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD in Dutch), having been a member since 1989, to form his own political party, Groep Wilders, later renamed Partij voor de Vrijheid (PVV or Party for Freedom). He left the liberal party, over a dispute within the VVD in late August 2004 about, among other things, his refusal to endorse the party's position that EU-accession negotiations must be started with Turkey. Geert Wilders has been in the Tweede Kamer since 1998.
His party program states that Wilders' party is not committed to "freedom of the individual"; Wilders believes that the Netherlands has been held hostage by elitist (mostly social democrat and left-wing liberal) politicians for decades. He claims to want to become "the new leader of the people", and in this respect he has been labeled a populist by the establishment.
His political views (and so the ones of the PVV as well) often overlap those of the murdered Rotterdam politician Pim Fortuyn and his List Pim Fortuyn. There are strong resemblances, certainly on socio-economic issues, to libertarianism. Wilders wants to lower taxes, cut most welfare programs, raise highway speed limits and minimize state regulations by making it mandatory to scrap two legal rules for every new one to be instated. He also wants to reintroduce the mandatory army service. On the crime issue, he has supported a U.S.-style three strikes law with mandatory life sentences after three separate acts of violent crime.
In polls released following the assassination of Theo van Gogh, it was estimated that Wilders' party could win as many as 29 (out of 150) seats in the Dutch parliament (Tweede Kamer). With the uproar over the killing of Van Gogh subsiding, this number declined to a low of one in October 2005. In February 2006, after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, it rose again to three seats.
A few weeks after the assassination, Geert Wilders stayed away from regular meetings in parliament for several weeks. Even though a member's presence is not mandatory, it is uncommon not to show up for weeks on end. Wilders claims that he did this out of concern for his personal security. Having been assigned a new seating position in the parliamentary meeting hall (one further away from the public observation area), he has once again started to attend meetings.
Wilders is under constant security protection because of frequent threats to his life. On 10 November 2004, two suspected terrorists were captured after an hour-long siege of a building in The Hague. They had three grenades and have been accused of planning to murder Geert Wilders as well as then fellow MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali. The men in question were presumed members of what the Dutch intelligence agency, the AIVD, has termed the Hofstadgroep. In September 2007, a Dutch woman was sentenced a 1-year prison term for sending out more than 100 threatening emails to Wilders.
In recent interviews, Geert Wilders more than once indicated that the Dutch constitution and European Convention on Human Rights should be amended or temporarily suspended to protect citizens from "Islamic extremism". He is in favor of stripping criminals with dual nationality of their Dutch citizenship and deporting them to their country of origin. This has led to considerable criticism.
In response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy Wilders posted the inflammatory cartoons on his website (1 February 2006), purportedly in support of the Danish cartoonists and freedom of speech. Following his publication, Wilders stated he had received more than 40 death threats in just two days.
In November 2006, PVV won, in its first parliamentary election, 9 of the 150 open seats.
The Dutch newspaper Telegraaf reported in May 2007 that Geert Wilders had been shadowed by the Dutch General Intelligence and Security Service for years, when he was foreign affairs spokesman for the VVD. During that time, Wilders had been regularly meeting officials at the Israeli Embassy in The Hague. Sources in the security service said that the agency was surveilling conversations between Wilders and Israeli personnel. The security services denied the allegations, insisting it had never shadowed or eavesdropped on Wilders.
On 15 December 2007, Wilders was declared politician of the year by NOS-radio, a mainstream Dutch radio station. The parliamentary press praised his ability to dominate political discussion and to attract the debate and to get into publicity with his well-timed one-liners. The editors eventually gave the title to Wilders because he was the only one who scored high both among the press as well as the general public.
In response to Wilders' outspoken statements, a countermovement was organized in December 2007 with the stated aim to "stop evil".
Political Views
Geert Wilders favors the restriction of immigration to the Netherlands, particularly from non-Western countries.
He recently made a movie Fitna which offers his view on Islam and the Qur'an. As self-proclaimed defender of free speech and critic of Islam, he has sought to ban the Qur'an in the Netherlands because he believes it to be in conflict with Dutch law.
Islam
Referring to the increased population of Muslims in the Netherlands, Wilders has said:
"Take a walk down the street and see where this is going. You no longer feel like you are living in your own country. There is a battle going on and we have to defend ourselves. Before you know it there will be more mosques than churches!"
Later, Wilders suggested that Muslims should “tear out half of the Koran if they wished to stay in the Netherlands” because it contained 'terrible things' and that Muhammad would “in these days be hunted down as a terrorist”. These statements caused strong reactions in Muslim countries such as Tunisia, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia.
On 8 August 2007, Wilders opined in a letter to the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant that the Koran, which he called a "fascist book", should be outlawed in the Netherlands, like Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf. He stated that: "The book incites hatred and killing and therefore has no place in our legal order.
On 15 August 2007, a representative of the Prosecutors' Office in Amsterdam declared that "dozens of reports" against Wilders had been filed, and that they were all being considered. Due to this position on Islam, the Dutch-Morrocan rapper Appa, when interviewed about Wilders for a newspaper, said “if someone were to put a bullet in his head, I wouldn't mind”. Wilders charged him with threatening with death. Appa denied this, saying that he wouldn't care (if it happened), accusing Wilders of harboring the same attitude towards Muslims.
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