LONDON, England (CNN) -- A London-based Web site has dropped a Dutch lawmaker's film that features disturbing images of terrorist acts juxtaposed with verses from the Quran to paint Islam as a threat to Western society, citing threats to its staff.
Geert Wilders' 15-minute film, "Fitna," was the top film on LiveLeak.com on Thursday.
LiveLeak.com said in a statement Friday that it decided to remove the film a day after it was posted "following threats to our staff of a very serious nature."
Attempts to reach LiveLeak for further comment were unsuccessful. However, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Beter Balkanende said the government was concerned that Geert Wilders' film "Fitna" could provoke a violent backlash.
"The possibilities are there of real threats," Balkanende said. "I have already warned Dutch people that there could be enormous consequences on the basis of our intelligence services and what we heard from the business sector."
Early response in the Netherlands was restrained, but hundreds of Muslims rallied in Pakistan, where the government temporarily blocked access to YouTube last month over a trailer for Wilders' film. The protesters burned the Dutch flag and called on Pakistan to cut ties with the Netherlands.
The Dutch government and others, including the European Union and the Organization of the Islamic Conference, have rejected the film. Still, Wilders stood by his project.
"My intention was not to offend in any way but to show the truth -- at least, the truth as I see it," Wilders said. "And if the truth hurts and could be offensive, well, this of course is not my problem."
Don't Miss Muslims condemn Dutch lawmaker's film iReports: Reaction from the Netherlands Czech far-right party offers help to Wilders Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament from the conservative Party for Freedom and an outspoken critic of Islam, said he doesn't hate Muslims. But he said he has "big problems" with the Prophet Mohammed, the Quran and "everything that is stated inside this terrible book."
Despite LiveLeak's decision to drop the film, "Fitna" was posted on several other Web sites, including Google Video and YouTube, a Google subsidiary.
The film was easily accessible via Google, but YouTube posted a disclaimer with the video and required a login to view it.
In a statement, YouTube said, "YouTube allows individuals to express themselves and to communicate with a global audience. The diversity of the world in which we live ... means that some of the beliefs and views of some individuals may offend others."
The film is also hosted on a Dutch Web site. The Web site of Wilders' political party also links to sites where the film can be viewed.
The title of the 15-minute film, "Fitna," translates in Arabic to "strife" or "conflict" of the type that occurs within families or any other homogenous group.
Criticism of Wilders and the film grew Friday.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the film, calling it "offensively anti-Islamic" while urging calm.
"There is no justification for hate speech or incitement to violence," he said in a statement. "The right of free expression is not at stake here." E-mail to a friend
CNN's Matthew Chance contributed to this story.
Posts: 1967 | From: USA | Registered: Oct 2006
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I'm so sick of this behaviour: A Danish newspaper placed a cartoon and a mass of people is using this to blame the whole country. A Dutch individual makes a movie, people don't like it and are using this to blame another country Holland. A Fatwa was issued against Salman Rushdie, but inspite of the fact that this man was much more insulting then the first two have been, it wasn't a reason to blame a whole country. They couldn't because it was a muslim country. So, in this case the blame was for the individual... Maybe people have to think before they are placing themselves on the chair of God, because who has the right to make judgements about a person in another country when they have been acting between the laws of that country? It is like the Israeli's did when they fired a rocket into the blind sheik in a weelchair in a neighbourcountry: Achmed Yassin, or entering any other country to kill... They are complaining about American intervenance in other countries, because they think the US doesn't have the right to do so, but why should they have the right to blame countries for the acts of an individual within the law? It is MASS-HYSTERIA!!!
-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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I agree with you to some point. But maybe it’s just human to have the tendency to be slightly afraid of people with a different culture or a different religious background. To my opinion that’s exactly what ignorant, opinionated or war-thirsty politicians and religious leaders are speculating on. Any chance will do to depict the “other” as the enemy. MASS-HYSTERIA is precisely what they want.
I don’t think you can really compare this situation to what happened to Salman Rushdie some 20 years ago, BTW. Information is spreading around the world much faster, after 9/11 general opinions of the “West” about the “East” have changed dramaticly, etc.
Posts: 119 | From: Where ever I lay my head... | Registered: Feb 2008
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Looked up some information about Salman Rushdie. He’s born in India, from Pakistani origin. Studied in England, went back to Pakistan for a few years and returned to England, where he was living when The Satanice Verses were published in 1988. His books are written in the English language and published first by an English publisher. When a fatwa against him in 1989, he was living in England. Neither the English nor the Pakistan population were blamed for Rushdie’s book.
Times have changed, indeed.
Posts: 119 | From: Where ever I lay my head... | Registered: Feb 2008
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I think 9/11 made the big changement, it has set the world on fire. Never I've heard so much about religion as since that time. This terroristic attack has been taken as an justification to declare each other as enemies. Politicians took it as an excuse to speak out words they never had dared to speak before, terrorists took it is an excuse to kill innocents, and the mass is following the ones they like to hear; from both sides. The ones who are intellegent enough to place questionmarks by what's happening are unheard. It is as if people LIKE to devide groups of epople: you're not one of us, so you're wrong. "He, who is not with us, is against us." Intolerance as an justification to do what is against every religious and humanitary principles...
-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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And there we are: two (as far as I can see) European women, who (as far as I can see) basically have the same opinion about the subject. I miss a middle-Eastern voice in this discussion. How can that be possible? Is the subject not important enough in the Middle-East? (I hope that’s a good sign.)
Been thinking about the subject a bit more during the day. I can see a strange similarity between Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses” and the notorious short movie “Submission” made by Somalian-Dutch politician Ajaan Hirshi Ali and Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh. The latter is made a few years after 9/11. Both the book and the movie are not “easy” to understand, could be seen as a very individual work of art, and have a far more dangerous and insulting message than the Danish cartoons and the “film” by Wilders. Rushdie, Hirshi Ali an Van Gogh received death treats that were meant for them personally, not for their fellow countrymen. It can’t be a coincidence that Van Gogh was finally murdered by a young student that was previously seen by his family, friends and neighbours as very serious, talented and intelligent.
Both the Danish cartoons and the Wilders’ “film” give a simplified, immature and offensive picture of the Islam. “Every Muslim is potential terrorist, killer and a child molester.” A child could understand the message. And a thinking child will be able to see though the message. (In fact it’s my day job to teach 15 to 16 year old adolescents. When I asked them what they were thinking about the “film” their general opinion was: this Wilders is just trying to scare people to get attention. Anyone can see this is not reality. For the record: this are children from the big city. Most of them have Muslim friends or have a Muslim background themselves.)
But what happens in some Muslim countries? Innocent Danish an Dutch people abroad are threatened. Danish an Dutch products are boycotted. Etc. Weird, isn’t it?
Posts: 119 | From: Where ever I lay my head... | Registered: Feb 2008
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The movie 'submission' has been a subject in the Egyptian student-scene. The Danish cartoons and the Wilder's movie also were/are. As the earlier facts were considered as an act of bad individuals, the latest are considered as a proof of the depravedness of countries, of groups of people, in fact as the confirmation about the 'evil' western society. The western society has done exactly the same, only contrary. It is an evolution of growing intolerance between two cultures...
-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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"As the earlier facts were considered as an act of bad individuals, the latest are considered as a proof of the depravedness of countries, of groups of people, in fact as the confirmation about the 'evil' western society."
Intriguing! Do you know if they have a sort of general explanation for this? Apart from the growing intolerance between cultures, of course.
Posts: 119 | From: Where ever I lay my head... | Registered: Feb 2008
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In fact they do the same in Western communities. What has been considered as the act of an individual, the whole group is getting blamed.
I think it is an arranged attitude. People don't get this kind of opinions by themselves, but because higher placed people are 'preaching' this.The imam by friday-prayers, the television-networks by broadcasting, the newspapers by publishing, the politicians by making it a subject in their election-programmes. A kind of propaganda...
-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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Yep, keep the people ignorant and point out a wicked enemy! So they don’t have to work on solutions of what’s really going wrong in their own country or in the rest of the world...
To my opinion the best thing we, as simple individuals, can do, is to try to keep an open mind and get as much information from different points of view as possible.
Posts: 119 | From: Where ever I lay my head... | Registered: Feb 2008
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-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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Good article! Gives a rather thorough and adequate description of what was going on in Holland at that time. Funny enough, I don’t know any similar article in the Dutch language about the political and economical situation of modern day Egypt. (Takes me back to the early nineties. I was almost unable to finish my thesis at university, because there simply didn’t seem to be any serious information about some “less popular” middle-eastern countries.)
Posts: 119 | From: Where ever I lay my head... | Registered: Feb 2008
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Think enough has changed in the last twenty years. And don't forget, twenty years ago, the situation in Egypt wasn't like it is today. Every grandmother from today has been walking around unveiled, was dressed western, and the economical situation was much better. Also in that time there was immigration for economical reasons, but when you compare it with the situation as it is right now, it wasn't that bad... This is only what I've heard, because twenty years ago, I never visited Egypt...
-------------------- “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there.” Posts: 7202 | From: EU | Registered: Nov 2006
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