Mr Enait, from Rotterdam, said the mosque he attended as a child had been burned down. Dozens of mosques in the Netherlands were burned in 2004 in apparent retaliatory attacks after the killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh by an Islamic radical who is now serving a life sentence.Mr. Auster comments:
Dozens of mosques were burned in the Netherlands in 2004? If this were true, wouldn't we have, ah, heard something about it at the time?Snouck's Commentary:
On 2 November 2004 Filmmaker Theo van Gogh was assassinated. The Dutch press reported a wave of attacks on mosques and Islamic schools. A number of churches was also attacked.
There are more than four hundred mosques in The Netherlands. Some attacks were very light, mere insulting graffiti texts. Schools and mosques were defiled with manure and (pigs) blood. There were also many more serious attempts at arson, by ethnic Dutch youngsters, who often added nationalist or neo-nazi graffiti. Several attacks were succesful. Schools and mosques were actually burned down. Although, the intensity of the violence lessened as time passed, it continues until today. Before 2004 there were already occassional attacks against mosques.
Recently arson was attempted against a mosque in the North (Selwerd) and a shot or shots were fired at a mosque in Dordrecht and other towns.
Looking at the pattern of the attacks I note that hardly any mosques are attacked in the mayor cities with large Muslim and non-white populations. The attacks are mostly in towns, where ethnic Dutch are the majority, but where there is a Muslim presence which is large enough to anger but not intimidate the local population.
Two days ago Mr. Geert Wilders tweeted on Twitter
the fewer mosques in The Netherlands, the better. But violence against existing mosques is unacceptable and must be fought and punished.
No comments:
Post a Comment