tasrit

DNA isn't 100% evidence. Someone can put someone elses DNA material on the crime scene, by example.

it’s even not acceptable that a guilty person could be executed.

THE WASHINGTON TIMES, December 20, 2004 By Tom Carter AMSTERDAM - Parliamentarian Geert Wilders sees himself as the legendary Dutch boy, finger in the dike, holding back a rising tide of immigrants that threatens to swamp the Netherlands and all of Europe . "Immigration is the biggest problem that Dutch society is facing today," said Mr. Wilders, in his office in The Hague . "We have been so tolerant of others' culture and religion, we are losing our own. ... Europe is losing itself. ... One day we will wake up, and it will be too late. [immigration] will have killed our country and our democracy." The intense politician spoke under the watchful eye of bodyguards, as his picture has been posted on Muslim Web sites calling for his beheading. Mr. Wilders' passion reflects a problem confronting much of Europe . Old, cold and settled in its ways, the Continent struggles to absorb waves of immigrants, to protect itself from the growing hatred of Muslim militants in their midst and to live with the dark fear of a world spinning out of control. "If Europe does not take the full and effective integration of its immigrants to heart and change its message from 'You are not welcome. You don't belong,' to 'We are in this together,' Europe is going to have a very hard time," said Demetrios Papademetriou, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington. Said Mr. Wilders: "In the last 30 years, the Netherlands population has grown from 13 million to 16 million, about 25 percent, but the immigrant population has grown from 160,000 to 1.6 million -- 1,000 percent. Ninety percent of our prison population is immigrants." "[immigrants] are the most dependent on our [welfare] schemes. They are non-Westerners and not speaking our language," he said. "In the next [few] years, 75 percent of our population growth will be non-Western immigrants; only 8 percent will be native Dutch. This is fact, not opinion," he said, dismissing a somewhat different picture that emerges from official statistics posted on government Web sites. For example, Netherlands' Central Statistical Office shows that about 50 percent, not 90 percent, of the prison population is foreign. And Mr. Wilders' 1.6 million figure can only be reached by including second- and third-generation children of immigrants, who were born in Holland and are citizens -- individuals who would never be considered foreign in the United States. Nevertheless, the thrust of his argument is gospel for Dutch immigration reformers. Moratorium sought Mr. Wilders demands, and many support, a five-year moratorium on all non-Western immigration, even to unite a legally working husband with his family. He wants illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers deported, and all immigrants to have a working knowledge of the Dutch language before they arrive. To remain in the Netherlands, a newcomer should pass a basic civics exam, one that few Dutch could pass. Mr. Wilders calls mosques "houses of terror and recruitment" for jihad. He describes Islam as "dangerous" and "fascist," articulating the fears of many. He says that Muslims beat their wives and children, and occasionally kill a daughter who wishes to marry outside the faith. He says that imams preach that homosexuals -- even in a society where same-sex "marriage" is legal -- should be executed. "I am talking about non-Western immigration to the Netherlands," Mr. Wilders said in a recent interview. "The lessons of Pim Fortuyn have not been learned." Mr. Fortuyn, a charismatic homosexual anti-immigration activist, was gunned down while running for prime minister in 2002 on an anti-immigration platform. After the assassination -- by a deranged animal-rights activist -- his party went on to capture 26 of 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. Earlier this year, the conservative People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) expelled Mr. Wilders because of his extreme views on immigration and his opposition to Turkey's bid to enter the European Union. That made the bottle-blond politician leader of his own one-man party, a figure easily dismissed by mainstream pundits as a political sideshow, a racist and in some Dutch newspapers, a Nazi. But that changed with the Nov. 2 slaying of Theo van Gogh, the anti-Islamist crusader and social provocateur, gunned down and then slashed with a knife by a Dutch citizen of Moroccan descent in broad daylight on an Amsterdam street. Within days, at least 19 other members of the Netherlands parliament were supporting Mr. Wilders -- at least on immigration issues. The Netherlands has 16 million people, including 1 million Muslims. Its Muslims include about 300,000 Moroccans and another 300,000 Turks, who came as "guest workers" during Holland's economic boom years. Holland is now their home and their children are full Dutch citizens who have never felt welcome in Europe's most permissive society, where marijuana consumption, prostitution and same-sex "marriage" are either tolerated or legal. Dutch intelligence says that an estimated 50,000 Muslims are devout and may be sympathetic to extremist goals and perhaps 150 might actually engage in criminal or terrorist acts. Fear of terrorism The September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States and March 11, 2004, terrorist bombings in Madrid amplified the fear and estrangement between the native Dutch and the Muslim communities. Polls consistently show that about 50 percent of voters support tighter restrictions on immigration and asylum, even though the largest immigrant populations in the Netherlands today are Germans and Indonesians from the former Dutch colony. Exacerbating the gnawing unease over swarthy men and women in head scarves on the streets of The Hague, Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amsterdam, there is the fear of foreigners taking jobs away from native Dutch. The Netherlands, like all of Western Europe, is facing what demographers call a "birth dearth." The native Dutch are having fewer children -- about 1.7 per woman -- which is lower than replacement rate. People are living longer, retiring and drawing government pensions longer. Economists predict the Netherlands' extensive social-welfare network will go broke if there are not enough younger workers to pay taxes. "If Europe doesn't employ immigrants, who will empty the bedpans ... who will pay the taxes needed to fund the retirement programs," said Ben Wattenberg of the American Enterprise Institute and the author of "Fewer," which details the demographic crisis in Europe. Meanwhile, the population of immigrants, their children and grandchildren is becoming politically active. "I am not a guest in the Netherlands, and I will not act like a guest, asking permission in someone else's home to sit here or move the furniture there. I was born here. I am a citizen," said Nabil Marmouch, the Dutch-Moroccan head of the Netherlands' Arab-European League, a political action group that plans to field candidates in upcoming elections. "[Muslims] have nothing to be ashamed of. We can be proud of our religion, our culture, our traditions. We do not have to assimilate or integrate. ... We do have to act like responsible citizens, obey the laws and get involved in the political process," Mr. Marmouch said. Like other Muslim organizations, he condemned the killing of Mr. van Gogh, but dismissed Mr. Wilders' bodyguards as a "fashion statement" designed to create fear of Muslims and draw attention to his anti-immigration politics. Some say that the real lesson of Mr. Fortuyn was "kill the heretic, adopt the heresy" as the mainstream parties, including the VVD, scrambled to adopt the Fortuyn prescriptions. In the days after the van Gogh killing, Mr. Fortuyn was named one of the most important persons in Dutch history, outpolling Vincent van Gogh (of whose brother the slain filmmaker was the great-grandson) and Rembrandt, philosopher Desiderius Erasmus and Anne Frank, who was not Dutch, but a German asylum seeker. "The VVD understood that you can win an enormous amount of votes playing the migration and integration card," said Rinus Penninx of the University of Amsterdam's Institute of Migration and Ethnic Studies. Mixed emotions But in a typical Dutch paradox, the local politicians are refusing to cooperate with national law enforcement charged with rounding up illegals. "People are saying, 'Illegal immigrants and failed asylum seekers should leave, but not ours. Ours are fine.' They are protesting the closing of local asylum centers. The mayor of Amsterdam told the government he won't help unless the individuals are causing a nuisance," Mr. Penninx said. Eduard Nazarski, head of the Dutch Refugee Council, said that the myth of Dutch tolerance is overstated. "Anne Frank is a symbol, an example of Dutch intolerance," said Mr. Nazarski, who says anti-immigrant hysteria has made the Netherlands the most restrictive nation in Europe for immigrants and asylum seekers. "Asylum seekers, illegal immigrants, legal immigrants, the politicians don't make a distinction. They are all foreigners. ... "About 50 percent of the Dutch people are fed up with too many foreigners being here. Thirty [percent] to 40 percent think that we have 100,000 asylum seekers a year, when it is really 20,000 to 30,000 a year. "It is all emotion. The government is not interested in the facts," Mr. Nazarski said. Jan Rath, who also teaches ethnic and immigration studies at the University of Amsterdam, said that Holland's historic acceptance of religious minorities such as the Mayflower Pilgrims masks a different reality. When Reform Protestants took power in Holland in the 16th century, Catholics were allowed to stay and worship, but only if they did so in "hidden" churches. He said the Muslims would be facing less resistance today if they were not so obvious. "I understand the emotional difficulty of seeing your society change before your eyes. My mother is an older Catholic, and the people in her neighborhood and church are very upset that they are building a mosque in her neighborhood. "The priest had to remind them that not so long ago there were restrictions on Catholics, like her, from building churches" in Protestant Holland, Mr. Rath said. While Dutch churches are all but empty today, the minarets of the largest mosque in Europe tower over Rotterdam. Foreigners unwelcome At a flower market along the Singel Canal, Donald van Achthoven, a tulip seller, says aloud what was once whispered: "My opinion is they have to be like the Dutch, if they come here. Leave their religion in their own country. "Live here with the rules of the Dutch. We are a tiny country, with too many people, too many for such a small place. ... I won't hire them. If they come here, they should speak our language and follow our rules." Mr. Papademetriou of the Migration Policy Institute said it is natural for immigrants who feel unwelcome in Europe to turn inward. "Naturally, they close in and look to themselves for comfort. ... It is like the immigrants to New York City in the early 1900s. Someone can be here 50 years and still only speak Greek or Italian," he said. Historically, the second generation generally learns the language, moves out of the ethnic neighborhood and assimilates. "This will happen in the Netherlands, too," Mr. Papademetriou said. Ask anyone in Amsterdam to identify a "bad" neighborhood, or a Muslim "ghetto," and a visitor is pointed, with a shudder and a warning, to Mercator Plein. It is a working-class district in Amsterdam West that is about 50 percent "foreign," mostly Turks and Moroccans, and 50 percent native Dutch. Far less "ethnic" than Maryland's University Park or the District's Adams Morgan, the streets are clean and feel safe. Women in head scarves shop at the outdoor market alongside Dutch mothers pushing strollers. People of various races eat Turkish pita and meat sandwiches, while others duck in and out of cell-phone, appliance and grocery stores. Rachid ben Larbi, a Moroccan from Tangiers, in Holland only 18 months, already speaks Dutch, to go along with his Arabic, Spanish, French and English. "The problem is not with the new generation, but with the old generation," he said while helping customers with new cell phones, easily switching among English, Dutch and Arabic. "How can you ask a 45-year-old woman, from the Moroccan countryside with three or four children, to integrate? The government should give her time," he said. Multicultural neighborhoods Elske Wouters, a white Dutch secretary who has lived in Mercator Plein for 10 years, calls it a perfect neighborhood. "The idea that it is a bad area is nonsense. There is very little crime, especially compared to the United States. ... Everyone gets along. I go to that Turkish coffee shop often and sit for hours. ... Everyone speaks Dutch." In de Pijp, another working-class foreign enclave near the Albert-Cyup Market, Tom Vossenberg has been principal of Dalton public elementary school for 30 years. He has 400 students, about 40 percent foreign, representing some 20 nationalities. "We've never had any trouble at the school. Sometimes [in the neighborhood] there are people who cause trouble, but on the whole, people are living together in a harmonious way," Mr. Vossenberg said. "I understand the emotional problem people have with immigration, but, with Pim Fortuyn and Geert Wilders , I think we are taking steps backward," he said. Sylvia Blom, a history teacher from Hoofddorp, had her middle-school students line up along the canal in front of the Anne Frank House to see an exhibit on Pim Fortuyn's right to speak against Muslims compared with an imam's religious right to condemn homosexual relations. The day before, Mrs. Blom had taken her students to Leiden, where the Mayflower Pilgrims lived for 11 years, to a museum dedicated to the 16th-century Dutch overthrow of Spanish rule. "I want these children to know that most of the industry developed in Holland in the 16th and 17th centuries was developed by immigrants, from Germany, Belgium, Spain, Portugal," she said. "Nothing has changed. The Netherlands was as multicultural 400 years ago as it is today." "Time solves a lot of things," said Mr. Rath, of the University of Amsterdam. "It is a process of the Netherlands, of Germany, of France redefining who and what we are. Right now, we don't know who we want to be. All we know is that we don't want it to be Muslim."

Sea surges kill thousands in Asia More than 7,000 people have been killed across southern Asia in massive sea surges triggered by the strongest earthquake in the world for 40 years. The 8.9 magnitude quake struck under the sea near Aceh in north Indonesia, generating a wall of water that sped across thousands of kilometres of sea. More than 3,200 died in Sri Lanka, 2,200 in Indonesia and 2,000 in India. Casualty figures are rising over a wide area, including tourist resorts on Thailand packed with holidaymakers. DISASTER TOLL Sri Lanka: 3,225 dead Indonesia: 2,200 dead India: 2,000 dead Thailand: 257 dead Malaysia: 28 dead Maldives: 10 dead Bangladesh: 2 dead Source: Government officials Exact numbers of people killed, injured or missing in the countries hit, are impossible to confirm. Hundreds are still thought to be missing from coastal regions and, in Sri Lanka alone, officials say more than a million people have been forced from their homes. Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga declared a national disaster and the military has been deployed to help rescue efforts. Hundreds of fishermen are missing off India's southern coast, and there are reports of scores of bodies now being washed up on beaches. Night has fallen in Indonesia and communications remain difficult, particularly to the strife-torn region of Aceh where the main quake was followed by nine aftershocks. Reports speak of bodies being recovered from trees. A national disaster has also been announced in the low-lying Maldives islands, more than 2,500km (1,500 miles) from the quake's epicentre, after they were hit by severe flooding. The Indian-owned Andaman and Nicobar islands, much nearer the epicentre, were also badly hit. Casualty reports could not be officially confirmed, but a police chief told Reuters 300 people had died and another 700 were feared dead. Waves forced out from the earthquake are even reported to have reached Somalia, on the east coast of Africa. Resort 'wiped out' International aid agencies have called for a rapid response to the emergency to avert further deaths. The European Union immediately pledged 3m euros (£2.1m) to disaster relief efforts. Messages of condolences have poured in from around the world. Pope John Paul said he was praying for "the victims of this enormous tragedy". Harrowing reports of people caught in the devastation and dramatic tales of escape are emerging from the region. Jayanti Lakshmi, 70, had gone shopping with his daughter-in-law in Cuddalore in southern India, only to return to find her son and twin grandsons dead in their hut. "I wish I had died instead of the others, my daughter-in-law would have a life. I can't bear to watch her pain," he said. All of us fear the final death toll, and in particular are worried that many tourists who went out on boat trips this morning have not returned Charles Dickson, Phuket, Thailand In Thailand, hundreds of holiday bungalows are reported to have been destroyed on the popular Phi Phi island. Resort owner Chan Marongtaechar told AP: "I am afraid there will be a high figure of foreigners missing in the sea, and also my staff." Indonesia's location - along the Pacific geological "Ring of Fire" - makes it prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. Sunday's tremor - the fifth strongest since 1900 - had a particularly widespread effect because it seems to have taken place just below the surface of the ocean, analysts say. Bruce Presgrave of the US Geological service told the Reuters news agency: "These big earthquakes, when they occur in shallow water... basically slosh the ocean floor... and it's as if you're rocking water in the bathtub and that wave can travel throughout the ocean." Experts say tsunamis generated by earthquakes can travel at up to 500km/h. IMPACT OF THE EARTHQUAKE Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/south_asia/4125481.stm Published: 2004/12/26 17:50:57 GMT © BBC MMIV

maybe it's just a "drug board" (does it have to be a pro or anti-drug board?)

Vitali Klitschko

It's clear you know nothing about the Netherlands. It's not polite to call someone a liar

It's discriminating if you treat people who have a Turkish or Moroccan background differently than someone who has white dutch ancestors. I'm not talking about gaining citizenship. I'm talking about people who are dutch by law, but aren't treated as dutch citizen anymore because of the colour of their skin, their religion or culture. Those measures has nothing to do with radical Moslims. Just an example: the dutch governement want to take a moroccan person with the dutch citizenship his dutch citizenship when he commited a severe crime? Why is it "severe crime" and not "terrorist crime". And what about the dutch people with dutch ancestors. Why don't they want to take their dutch citizenship? Volker van der G. commited a political murder. Why didn't they take him his dutch citizenship. Why is that man just " a crazy man" and the one who murdered Theo van Gogh "a very dangerous man" and suddenly the netherlands is in "war"? Why are those Belgium men with Begium ancestors who murdered moroccans in Belgium men who are just "confused". But why is a person with moroccan background who murdered someone a monster? And why has the whole Moroccan society to apologize for this crime (even the moroccan king has to do that!) So according to you is talking about discrimination in the Netherlands is the same as defending radical moslims? When were you in the Netherlands? Before 11 september 2001? Ask you Arab friends (the majority of the people in the Netherlands with a Moroccan background aren't Arabs) how they feel now.

We don't talk about the immigrants. We're talking about the CHILDREN of immigrants. People who are borned and raised in the Netherlands. People who have the DUTCH citizenship. People who speak fluent dutch. Please don't talk about WOII. The Jewish people mostly suffer, not the majority of the dutch people. The dutch people "hate the Germans, because during the war the Germans stoled their bikes.

http://www.cre.gov.uk/media/nr_arch/2004/s041116.html Tuesday 16 November 2004 'Why Muslims make Britain a better place' – CRE chair Trevor Phillips's speech to the Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, 16 November a part of the speech: Finally the Dutch, most tragic of all – and given the two high profile deaths which have occurred, of Pim Fortuyn and Theo van Gogh, I mean the word tragic literally. Both killings were ghastly, vicious murders, and in both cases all those involved deserve the worst punishment that can be meted out by the courts. But it does not in any way excuse these crimes to point out that the Dutch political classes have chosen the worst possible way of avoiding the potential violence. We think of Holland as secular and liberal. We could not be more wrong. This is a society of that is both religiously divided and utterly repressive, with most people corralled into schools, districts and civic clubs defined by their religious heritage. Dutch politicians have tried to apply this policy of segregation to Muslims and it has blown up in their faces. In the Netherlands, the policy has been to combine both American segregation and French authoritarianism in one toxic recipe. As in France, the policy has been driven by a fear of being seen as "soft" on Muslims. It is a policy of appeasement of the far right. And it is beginning to bear its bitter fruit. Nine months ago, I took part in a debate in Amsterdam with the liberal Dutch-Somali MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Ayaan is one of the producers of Theo van Gogh’s final film, Submission, which attacked Islam for its allegedly repressive attitude towards women. As a result she is now in hiding, but I pray that her voice is not stilled. Ayaan made a spirited case against the actions of some Muslim men and the actions of some communities, and given her own experience as a young woman it would beutterly wrong to brush her views aside. But where I disagree with her is this: because the practice of some Muslims may be cruel and misogynist, we must not brand the entire faith unacceptable. Doing so will lead to only one result : divided communities in which many Muslims feel forced to choose between their faith and their country. Back in February, I criticised proposals which would discriminate against Dutch Muslims, and said this: "In France, and now in Holland we can see that the desire to accommodate [the far right] leads to disaster… in this Dutch auction, [we] will never keep pace with the [far] right... We do have a serious job to do in making integration work. That task will not be made easier if migrants are held responsible for problems over which they have no control, blamed for failures that took place before they even got here and told that they are threats to the values they believe in... We have more to do to prove that we do want integration. Otherwise, by treating migrants as unwelcome strangers we risk turning people who came to us desperately wanting to be friends into the enemies we fear." Now, less than a year later, the grim news from the Netherlands shows that the Dutch have succeeded in doing exactly that. We must not make the same mistake.

this article is a real joke. If it's true, don't you think that Israel used it (that Arafat has homosexual contacts) to harm Arafat more, especially in the Arab and Muslim world?

They want to join the EU, yes, but there is no power struggling going on in Turkey.

The majority of the Turkish people are Muslims. Can you give me a link that there is a power struggling going on in that country, because that's new for me.

Israel take over the land by terrorism.

There will always be racism, discrimination etc. in the Netherlands. First it were the Jewish people, then the Indonesian people, later the people from Suriname and the dutch Antillen, now the Moroccans and he, about ten years it's the turn of the people from eastern Europe.

Your people? Who are "your people"? I don't have a rifle Like I said before: it's bad when someone died, even if it's Bush or Sharon

I don't think that radicalized Imams have influence on that kind of guys, because the radicalized imams I heard of are mostly from the Middel East. They only preach in Arabic, a language that the most Muslims in the Netherlands don't speak! So if there are radicalized groups in the Netherlands they get influenced by the internet, where they can communicate in dutch or in english.

there are no bad guys-good guys If people think in those terms, there will never be a solution.

I read the letter. It was a letter adressed to Ayaan Hirshi Ali. I don't think he murdered Theo van Gogh because of his last film or even because of his insults about Muslims. He not once mentioned Theo van Gogh or his work. I thinked he killed him to get the attention of Ayaan. In the letter I read a lot of frustration and anger about the racism and anti-islam in the Netherlands, feelings that the majority of the Muslim population in the Netherlands have (I think). The only difference is that something went really wrong with this guy and reacted that way, while-of course-, normally people react verbally or not react at all. In the letter he projected all his frustration on Ayaan Hirshi Ali, but killed Theo van Gogh. About quoting the Quran.... I only know that fundamentalistic Muslims think it's a sin to translate the Qur'an in another language. So I found it very strange to see he quoted some verse from the Qur'an in dutch. But I think it's a combination of frustration and being in contact with some radicalized groups.

I'm sorry for my reaction, but was irritated about some comments here The first general reaction was a shocked one. Especially because the murderer left a letter behind on the victims body. The general reaction in the Netherlands: it's not ok to be a Muslim, especially a Moroccan Muslim. There are no leaders in the Muslim community here, but a lot of Morrocan and Islamic organisations have of course condemned this murder. A question, what did you think the "leaders of the Muslim community" were saying? Just curious.

because you were talking about hating and forgiving.

I didn't said that Hamas has killed no Americans. I said that Palestinians never attacked the US

something really wrong with my computer. Sorry

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