Koran film sparks outrage
Updated on 28 March 2008
Islamists have held angry demonstrations after a Dutch politician released a film that accused the Koran of inciting violence.
The movie, called Fitna after the Arabic word for strife, mixes images of the September 11 attacks and other atrocities with quotations from the Muslim holy book.
It urges Muslims to tear out "hate-filled" verses from the Koran and starts and finishes with a cartoon of the Prophet Mohammad with a bomb under his turban, originally published in Danish newspapers, accompanied by the sound of ticking.
The man responsible, MP Geert Wilders, who heads the anti-immigration Freedom Party, has been under armed guard after getting death threats.
Iran condemned the film along with Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation and a former Dutch colony.
A spokesman for the southeast Asian country's foreign ministry said: "We are of the view that the film has a racist flavour and is an insult to Islam, hidden under the cover of freedom of expression."
But Dutch Muslim leaders appealed for calm and have called on Muslims worldwide not to target Dutch interests.
In a statement on live television in both Dutch and English, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he rejected Wilders' views and was pleased by the restrained reaction of Dutch Muslim organisations.
Demonstrators took to the streets from Afghanistan to Indonesia to burn Dutch and Danish flags after newspapers reprinted the caricatures of Mohammed following the arrest of three men on suspicion of trying to kill the cartoonist, Kurt Westergaard.
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