DAR AL HARB - NETHERLANDS: DID THE ANTI-TERRORISM NATIONAL COORDINATOR ATTEMPT TO INTIMIDATE GEERT WILDERS, AN OUTSPOKEN CRITIC OF ISLAM?!?

Anti-Terrorism Authority Denies It Intimidated Wilders

THE HAGUE, 28/04/07 - The Anti-terrorism National Coordinator (NCTb) denies that it tried to pressurise Party for Freedom (PVV) leader Geert Wilders to adopt a milder tone about Islam. The Lower House is unconvinced and wants clarification by Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin.

Wilders said on TV programme RTL Nieuws Thursday evening he had a three-hour meeting at the NCTb office two weeks ago. NCTb chief Tjibbe Joustra showed him "hundreds" of newspaper articles and TV pictures from the Arabic world with angry reactions to statements made by Wilders in February about the Koran and the Prophet Mohammed. The message was that the Netherlands could as a result of the PVV land up in a situation like that of Denmark after a Danish newspaper printed cartoons about Mohammed, Wilders averred.

Wilders stated that he did not at first feel intimidated by NCTb. "But when I requested the material after the interview, I was only sent untranslated documents in Persian and Arabic. Then I began to think that there was perhaps a double agenda."

In February, Wilders said Muslims in the Netherlands should tear up half the Koran because the content was unacceptable. He also stated that Mohammed, if he lived in the Netherlands today, would have to be tarred and feathered and deported from the country as an extremist.

The House wants clarification from the government on the behaviour of the NCTb. It may have tried to gag a public representative, say several parties. Wilders himself did not wish to draw this conclusion, but "I do feel a bit intimidated." A NCTb spokesman would only say "we reject any relationship that is laid with intimidation."

Wilders commented that in the interview, Joustra immediately corrected a NCTb staff member who suggested that Wilders would be better to moderate his tone. Nonetheless, the message came over that Dutch people in the Middle East could be endangered by Wilders' statements, as could exports of Dutch companies, according to the MP.

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Pertinent Links:

1) Anti-Terrorism Authority Denies It Intimidated Wilders