(IsraelNN.com) Dutch authorities are treating with extraordinary caution the gruesome murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh on an Amsterdam street on November 2. The 26-year-old suspect, caught by police along with seven alleged accomplices shortly after the act, is only identified as "Mohammed B." He has dual Dutch-Moroccan nationality, and officials say that he "acted from a radical Islamic conviction." Van Gogh, 47, was shot several times from close range and his throat was slit. A note in Arabic stuck to his chest with a knife called for jihad and threatened to kill Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born refugee who is a member of Parliament and an outspoken critic of Islam. To protest the attack, some 20,000 people converged on Amsterdam's central square.
In August, van Gogh released a fictional film about the mistreatment of Muslim women, who were shown naked with texts from the Koran scrawled on their bodies. He received numerous death threats.
News agencies describe him as a widely published columnist, television producer, and provocative commentator who often used offensive language. Justice Minister Jan Piet Hein Donner and Interior Minister Johan Remkes have urged calm but fears are widespread that the murder will worsen Dutch race relations, tense since the murder of anti-immigration populist Pim Fortuyn in May 2002. Close to one million Muslim immigrants and their descendants live in the Netherlands. The press calls van Gogh's murder the first act of Islamic terror on Dutch soil. (Bigotry Monitor -- UCSJ's weekly newsletter)
In August, van Gogh released a fictional film about the mistreatment of Muslim women, who were shown naked with texts from the Koran scrawled on their bodies. He received numerous death threats.
News agencies describe him as a widely published columnist, television producer, and provocative commentator who often used offensive language. Justice Minister Jan Piet Hein Donner and Interior Minister Johan Remkes have urged calm but fears are widespread that the murder will worsen Dutch race relations, tense since the murder of anti-immigration populist Pim Fortuyn in May 2002. Close to one million Muslim immigrants and their descendants live in the Netherlands. The press calls van Gogh's murder the first act of Islamic terror on Dutch soil. (Bigotry Monitor -- UCSJ's weekly newsletter)