Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has warned a maverick lawmaker of the risks to Dutch national interests if he presses ahead with a film criticizing the Koran.
Balkenende's appeal to Geert Wilders on Friday stopped short of demanding that he not release the film, which Wilders said was in the final stages of editing.
"Already we are having to take account of serious threats to Dutch people," Balkenende said in a televised news conference.
"When you see how the reactions have been at home and abroad, what the risks could be of this film, then there's one person who must answer for it, and that is Mr Wilders himself," he said.
Wilders said his short film would portray the Koran as a "fascist book." He does not yet have a broadcaster for it, but says he will release it on the Internet if he fails to find one.
In a statement after Balkenende's news conference, Wilders accused the Cabinet of "bowing to fear of terror and fear of Islam" and rejected calls to scrap the movie.
"Let me make one thing clear: The film will be released," he said.
Last week, the Pakistani government ordered Internet providers to restrict access to YouTube, allegedly to prevent Pakistanis from accessing a clip of Wilders in which he makes derogatory remarks about Islam. The move inadvertently caused a worldwide outage of the video sharing site.
The Dutch development minister called off a visit to Somalia on Friday after he was warned his life would be in danger on the trip.
"This is about the safety of Dutch citizens and businesses abroad, the Dutch military which is on a mission [in Afghanistan], about the broader interest of the Netherlands, the values for which we stand, our reputation internationally," Balkenende said.
In an earlier last week, Wilders said negative reactions to his film "only served to prove the point" that Islam should be criticized.
Wilders said the film would demonstrate how the Koran incites violence and intolerance of women and homosexuals.
Muslim groups in the Netherlands say they will file hate-speech charges against Wilders for previous statements, such as his description of Islam as a "retarded" religion. The Grand Mufti of Syria has warned of "bloodshed" if the film is released.
The Dutch national antiterrorism coordinator has told Wilders he may have to go into hiding abroad once his film is released. He already lives under constant police protection.
Dutch embassies have warned staff to brace for similar violence if the film is broadcast.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS