- THE HAGUE -- Dutch leaders
debated Tuesday about invoking a rarely used law banning blasphemy in response
to a wave of ethnic tension and violence.
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- Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner told Parliament that
he wanted to revive a 1932 law to isolate radicals and curb "hateful
comments."
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- But he was vague on how it would be applied, which he
said would be up to the courts.
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- Under the law, violators could face jail terms of up
to three months and a fine for insulting a person's religious faith, either
orally or in writing. It was last invoked in 1968.
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- The debate comes two weeks after the slaying of Theo
van Gogh, a filmmaker whose film "Submission" criticized the
treatment of women in Islam and enraged many of the country's Muslims,
who number about a million. The main suspect in van Gogh's murder is Islamic.
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- Donner did not respond when asked whether the law was
intended to restrict mosque sermons that could be considered inciting,
or whether it could target provocative films like van Gogh's.
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- "If the opinions have a potentially damaging effect
on society, the government must act," he said. "It is not about
religion specifically, but any harmful comments in general," he said
in a parliamentary debate.
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- Political leaders angrily responded to Donner's proposal.
D66, the smallest party in the governing coalition, submitted a motion
to remove the blasphemy clause from the criminal code.
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- "Since van Gogh's murder there are great doubts
about what can and cannot be said," said Lousewies van der Laan, parliamentary
leader of D66. Instead of addressing those concerns, he said, the minister
proposes "to dust off a barely used law on blasphemy."
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- Van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death Nov. 2 on an Amsterdam
street. More than 20 arson attacks and reprisals against churches and mosques
followed his killing, revealing previously hidden ethnic hatreds.
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- Donner said the law was "part of promoting integration,
part of taking away the possible explosive material in society to avoid
reactions like we had last week."
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- Much of the recent public debate has come down to the
perceived gap between the values of Dutch natives and foreign imams who
preach at Dutch mosques.
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- An adviser to Queen Beatrix said Tuesday that the Netherlands
must clamp down on the far-right and shun anti-immigration populists.
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- "How is it possible that in Spain, after the attacks
on trains in which 191 people died, not a single mosque was set on fire?"
said Max van der Stoel, a former Dutch foreign minister. "It happened
in the Netherlands, which makes you think."
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- Van der Stoel, a former national minorities high commissioner
for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, urged the
Dutch government to build bridges with Muslims. His comments came a day
after Pim Fortuyn, the maverick anti-immigration populist who was killed
by an animal rights activist in 2002, was voted "Greatest Dutchman"
in a television contest.
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- Historians expressed shock that Fortuyn had been chosen
as "Greatest Dutchman" ahead of William of Orange, the postwar
Prime Minister Willem Drees, the diarist Anne Frank, and Vincent van Gogh
and Rembrandt. About 300,000 people voted in the television contest broadcast
late Monday.
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- "Extreme right-wing youths must be dealt with firmly,"
van der Stoel told the Algemeen Dagblad daily. "Burning mosques show
tensions increasing in an intolerable way. Then relations between natives
and foreigners are really in danger."
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- Van der Stoel said the situation in the Netherlands reminded
him in the last few days of religious violence in Macedonia in 2001. "If
we don't do anything, the chasms will get deeper and the walls of distrust
will become ever higher," he said.
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- http://www.iht.com/articles/2004/11/16/news/dutch.html
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