A Dutch legislator's film that portrays Islam as a ticking time bomb aimed at Western democracy prompted denunciations from Muslim capitals and street protests in Pakistan, but a restrained reaction from Dutch Muslims who had expected worse.
The 15-minute film, titled Fitna, an Arabic word meaning "ordeal," by anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders was posted on a Web site late on Thursday.
On Friday, the Web site LiveLeak.com removed the film, citing threats to its staff "of a very serious nature," but it has since been widely dispersed on file-sharing sites.
Employing elements and symbols calculated to offend Muslims, Fitna draws on well-worn footage of terrorist attacks and anti-Western, anti-Jewish rhetoric that was meant to alarm the native Dutch.
Hundreds of Muslims demonstrated in Pakistan. The Foreign Ministry summoned the Dutch ambassador to deliver an official complaint against what it called a "defamatory film which deeply offended the sentiments of Muslims all over the world."
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned the movie.
"There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence. The right of free expression is not at stake here," he said in a statement in New York.
"The real fault line is not between Muslim and Western societies, as some would have us believe, but between small minorities of extremists, on different sides, with a vested interest in stirring hostility and conflict," he said.
Condemnations also came from the government of Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, Iran and Jordan.
"It is not Islam that should be stopped, it is fear-mongers like Geert Wilders who should be stopped from spreading their hatred," said Zakaria al-Sheik of the Rassoul Allah Yajmana, a Jordanian group formed to protect the image of Islam.
The Council of Europe said the film was a "distasteful manipulation" that exploits fear. The World Council of Churches said it failed to distinguish extremism from the more mainstream Islam.
"Extremism is a problem for most religions and needs to be countered through inter-religious dialogue," the Reverend Shanta Premawardhana said.
Dutch Muslims said the film misrepresented Islam, but that Wilders had largely stayed within the bounds of acceptable political discourse -- winning praise from Wilders himself for their civil reaction.
Wilders argues in the film that Islam's objective is to rule the world and impose an Islamic order without Western freedoms, where gays would be persecuted and women discriminated against.
The film employed elements and symbols calculated to offend Muslims. It reproduced pages of the Koran with the voice of an imam intoning the text.
Alongside appears translations in Dutch or English of passages calling on followers to defend the faith and slay their enemies.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
SEEKING ORDER: Rodrigo Paz said that ‘anyone who wants to destroy the nation will have to deal with this president and the full force of the constitution’ Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Wednesday said that the nation was at a “breaking point” after nearly a month of protests that have caused shortages of food, fuel and medicine. Paz, who took office six months ago amid the worst economic crisis there in four decades, is battling a groundswell of fury over his policies. The political capital, La Paz, has been besieged by low-income workers and members of the indigenous majority calling for his resignation. “The country needs order and is reaching breaking point,” the 58-year-old said at a public event in La Paz, renewing his appeal for dialogue. On Tuesday, the Bolivian
Forecasters in Europe yesterday warned of exceptional heat as record temperatures driven by a “heat dome” push temperatures well above seasonal norms across the continent. The surge follows a record-breaking Monday, with France logging its hottest day in the month of May on record, its weather agency said, and the UK also posting unprecedented highs. A so-called “heat dome” of warm air from northern Africa trapped under a high-pressure system over western Europe is behind the high temperatures not usually seen until high summer. Restrictions on outdoor work were imposed in parts of Italy, beaches in southwest France filled earlier than usual and
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
RSS