Fitna, the short film by Dutch politician Geert Wilders, may have thrust its creator into the international limelight even before its release, but in the Netherlands, Wilders has long built up a reputation for being a controversial and outspoken member of parliament. Geert Wilders, the leader of the anti-immigration PVV party, has compared the Koran to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, has claimed his country is flooded by a tsunami of Muslims and has proposed ‘sending them back where they came from’ if Muslim immigrants are unwilling to denounce their religion. By creating Fitna, Wilders has reached another milestone on his crusade against what he calls ‘the Islamisation of the Netherlands’. His remarks have earned him both death threats and a growing electoral base. Emilie van Outeren and Derk Stokmans report.
