Muslim hardliners in Indonesia rally over Dutch film

31/03/2008 10:22

JAKARTA (Reuters) - About 50 members of a hardline Indonesian Muslim group held a rowdy protest outside the Dutch embassy on Monday, calling for the death of a Dutch lawmaker behind a film accusing the Koran of inciting violence.

Geert Wilders, leader of the anti-immigration Freedom Party in the Netherlands, launched his short video on the Internet last week, drawing condemnation from Muslim nations.

Dozens of police, with two water cannon at the ready, did not intervene during the protest by white-clad members of the Islamic Defenders’ Front, some of whom hurled eggs and plastic water bottles into the compound of the Dutch embassy in Jakarta.

"I call on Muslims around the world, if you run into the maker of the film, kill him," said one of the speakers at the rally, Awit Mashuri.

"Geert Wilders is a Christian terrorist," declared a placard held up by a protester. "Kill Geert Wilders," read another.

The Front is notorious for its past raids on nightspots the group accused of harbouring prostitutes and drug dealers.

In 2003, the group’s leader, Mohammad Rizieq Shihab, was jailed for seven months for inciting violence.

Dutch director Theo van Gogh, who made a film accusing Islam of condoning violence against women, was murdered by a militant Islamist in 2004.

Wilders’ film "Fitna" .....continued below

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-- an Arabic term sometimes translated as "strife" -- intersperses images of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States and Islamist bombings with quotations from the Koran, Islam’s holy book.

The film urges Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from the Koran and starts and ends with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb under his turban, accompanied by the sound of ticking.

The cartoon, first published in Danish newspapers, ignited violent protests around the world and a boycott of Danish products in 2006. Many Muslims regard any depiction of the Prophet as offensive.

So far, the protests against the Dutch film have been small scale in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation and a former Dutch colony.

(Reporting by Telly Nathalia; Writing by Ahmad Pathoni; Editing by Ed Davies)

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