27 May 2012
The organization Sharia4Holland received considerable attention in Dutch media this week. The group advocates establishing the Netherlands as an Islamic state, and was created in 2010 as an offshoot of the Sharia4Beligum, the organization. The radical stance has few supporters in the country, with estimations placing membership at one dozen- a Radio Netherlands Worldwide profile suggests that in many instances when the organization appears in public, participants are actually members of the more prominent Sharia4Belgium parent organization.
The group has attracted attention for organizing a conference which was to be held at an undisclosed location on May 26, 2012, and to which Fouad ‘Abu Imran’ Belkacem, head of Sharia4Belgium, had been invited to speak.
On Friday May 25 a man identifying as a Sharia4Holland participant, in a television interview at Amsterdam’s national monument, called Geert Wilders is “the dog of the Romans”, and warned that the politician should learn from the “lesson” of slain filmmaker Theo van Gogh.
Consequently, the organization has come under investigation by the Dutch police service, while councilor Robert Flos, a member of the ruling VVD, criticized police response at the time for not arresting the man as a result of his “hate speech”.
