Extremist Threats Put Netherlands in Turmoil

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-dutch22nov22,1,837375.story?coll=la-headlines-world
Extremist Threats Put Netherlands in Turmoil
By Sebastian Rotella
Times Staff Writer
November 22, 2004

AMSTERDAM — Geert Wilders is on the run. He can't go home. He doesn't show his face in public. Six police officers track his every step.
Wilders is not a fugitive, but a prominent Dutch legislator. The threat of assassination by Islamic extremists has forced him and several other politicians into hiding, while about 150 men identified by police as hard-core militants remain free.

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The Nov. 2 killing of director Theo van Gogh, whose latest film had denounced mistreatment of women in Muslim communities, set off a wave of arson attacks against mosques and churches. Police rounded up an accused terrorist cell whose youthful members trained in Pakistan and planned to kill Dutch leaders, including Wilders and feminist legislator Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the writer of Van Gogh's film.

In a society built on consensus, permissiveness and generous social policy, the turmoil has been "un-Dutch," in the words of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende. And as Europe struggles with change driven by immigration, Islam and demographics, it's a hint of potential strife ahead.

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"It's amazing that these kinds of things escalated as they have," said Ayham Tonca, 40, a Turkish immigrant leader. "There is a great fear of Islam in Holland. But on the other side, the Muslim community is also afraid. You have two groups who are afraid and who don't speak to each other. And that's not good for the society."

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Holland has traditionally been more of an open, peaceful, and accepting kind of place...