MOSQUE OCCUPATION WORRIES DUTCH MUSLIMS
Amsterdam, 21 Rabiul Akhir 1436/11 February 2015 (MINA) – Amid escalating anti-Muslim tensions in Netherlands, the occupation of a mosque under construction in Leiden has increased Muslim concerns in the west European country who expressed fears for their safety.
“This was organized and could be the beginning of an escalation,” lobby group Contactorgaan Moslims en Overheid (CMO) told the Volkskrant, Dutch News reported.
“We are really worried about what might come next,” according to On Islam report quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA).
The attack on the mosque under construction in Leiden occurred last Saturday morning when five men, aged between 21 and 35, climbed onto the roof of the mosque.
Standing on the mosque roof, they hanged up banners reading ‘stop Islam’ and ‘the victory begins in Leiden’.
The responsibility of the attack was claimed by far-right group Identitair Verzet (identity resistance). “This is the first act in a series against the Islamization of the Netherlands,” the Facebook page said.
The group called on “all activists and sympathizers in the Netherlands and Flanders” to join the resistance movement. The men, arrested for trespassing on a building site, were released shortly.
The unprecedented attack rang alarm bells among Dutch Muslims. “This is unlike other incidents,” said CMO’s Yassin Elforkani.
“Those were carried out by individuals. There are enough signs we should be worried about this group.”
The attack culminated several anti-Muslim incidents over the past months. In Almere, a man drove into a group of girls on his bike, kicked them and called them ‘c*** Muslims’. In Rotterdam, a girl was spat at and mosques sprayed with graffiti.
Identitair Verzet, which has over 5,000 likes on its Facebook page, is led by right-wing extremist Paul Peters, according to anti-fascist research group Kafka.
A recent research on anti-Muslim violence in the Netherlands has found that approximately 69% of mosques have experienced at least one attack or more during the last ten years.
The most common attacks were smashed windows, followed by slurs or anti-Islamic comments sprayed with graffiti and arson.
Other types of attacks include aggression against mosque personnel, amounting to death threats to Muslims in general or to a specific Mosque by email or phone.
Muslims make up one million of the Netherlands’s 16 million population, mostly from Turkish and Moroccan origin. (T/P011/P3)
Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)
