Cabinet to act against 'extremist mosques'

9 December 2004

AMSTERDAM — The Dutch government has committed itself to a plan of action against the 10 to 25 mosques in the Netherlands where “extremist sermons” are delivered, Interior Minister Johan Remkes has said.

Remkes told Parliament that if the criminal law can’t be used against these mosques, the government will consider withdrawing subsidies and residence permits for the Muslim clerics preaching at the mosques. He made his remarks during a parliamentary debate about terrorism on Wednesday.

The minister’s Liberal VVD colleagues and MPs of the populist LPF have led calls for a crackdown on mosques that are seen as a breeding ground of radicalism, news agency ANP reported.

Criticising the coalition Christian Democrat CDA, VVD and Democrat D66 government for what she claimed was its inaction to date, Liberal MP Laetitia Griffith said “no single mosque has been disbanded nor an imam deported”.

Remkes said the government was not trying to become a censure of mosque sermons. But he said the government planned to bring about “course corrections” in mosques where anti-western hate or anti-women sermons were being preached.

He added further that extremist sermons were being preached in about 10 to 25 mosques.

Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner said his officials were working on ways to tackle “hate-sites” on the internet and to track down where they are being hosted from.

Subject: Dutch news

Cabinet to act against ‘extremist mosques’