THE HAGUE, April 2, 2006 (IslamOnline.net) – The Dutch ministries of justice and interior have failed to live up to their responsibilities and continue to turn a blind eye to mushrooming racist websites in the Netherlands, a Dutch rights activist has charged.
Marco Hughes, director of the Racism Monitoring Center (MDI), said minorities in the European country continue to be showered with online racist, frightening and hatred-inciting expressions.
"We have filed 18 lawsuits over the past three years (against racist websites), but the appropriate authorities did not move a finger," he said in a press release, a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net on Saturday, April 2.
The latest MDI legal action came on Friday, March 31, when Hughes resorted anew to litigation in a bid to take the racist slurs offline.
He named some of the offensive websites like Holland Hardcore, which calls for setting fire to mosques and Islamic schools in the country let alone countless racist slurs.
Other minorities like Jews are not spared racist insults like "who are more dangerous: Muslims or Jews?
The site is also championing a "white revolution" to expel all foreigners and abort non-white pregnant women on the grounds that they cannot raise their children properly.
Muslim Complaints
Hughes said the center received a torrent of complaints in February from Muslims after right-wing MP Geert Wilders posted cartoons lampooning Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) on his homepage.
Last September, Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten ran 12 caricatures including portrayals of the Prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban and another showing him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.
Supporters of controversial Somali-born MP Ayaan Hirsi, who wrote the scripts of two documentaries on the alleged mistreatment of women under Islam, also published online shirts poking fun at the Prophet.
The MDI asserted that authorities failed to take action about the Muslim complaints.
Islamophobia gained momentum in the Netherlands after the November 2004 killing of director Theo van Gogh by a Dutch-Moroccan after directing the first offensive film of Hirsi.
Europe’s main rights and democracy watchdog, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), expressed concern in May last year at the increasing Dutch intolerance towards the one-million Muslim minority and the "climate of fear" under which the minority was living.
Dereliction of Duty
The authorities inaction on racist websites also drew fire from the ruling Christian Democrats (CDA) and the opposition Labour party.
CDA Member Mirjam Sterk and Labour's Aleid Wolfsen have submitted an interpellation over the failure to stand up to the worrying phenomenon.
Other MPs have blasted as unacceptable the justice ministry's argument that it can not keep pace with the rapid Internet development.
The Dutch parliament has adopted over the past few years a number of laws to combat extremism and online hatred.
A government report warned last year that the scale of racism and extremism are worryingly increasing among right-wing "skinhead" youths and posing major threats to Dutch national security.
The report warned that such radical right-wing youth groups are more dangerous on society than Muslim extremists.
Marco Hughes, director of the Racism Monitoring Center (MDI), said minorities in the European country continue to be showered with online racist, frightening and hatred-inciting expressions.
"We have filed 18 lawsuits over the past three years (against racist websites), but the appropriate authorities did not move a finger," he said in a press release, a copy of which was obtained by IslamOnline.net on Saturday, April 2.
The latest MDI legal action came on Friday, March 31, when Hughes resorted anew to litigation in a bid to take the racist slurs offline.
He named some of the offensive websites like Holland Hardcore, which calls for setting fire to mosques and Islamic schools in the country let alone countless racist slurs.
Other minorities like Jews are not spared racist insults like "who are more dangerous: Muslims or Jews?
The site is also championing a "white revolution" to expel all foreigners and abort non-white pregnant women on the grounds that they cannot raise their children properly.
Muslim Complaints
Hughes said the center received a torrent of complaints in February from Muslims after right-wing MP Geert Wilders posted cartoons lampooning Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessings be upon him) on his homepage.
Last September, Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten ran 12 caricatures including portrayals of the Prophet wearing a bomb-shaped turban and another showing him as a knife-wielding nomad flanked by shrouded women.
Supporters of controversial Somali-born MP Ayaan Hirsi, who wrote the scripts of two documentaries on the alleged mistreatment of women under Islam, also published online shirts poking fun at the Prophet.
The MDI asserted that authorities failed to take action about the Muslim complaints.
Islamophobia gained momentum in the Netherlands after the November 2004 killing of director Theo van Gogh by a Dutch-Moroccan after directing the first offensive film of Hirsi.
Europe’s main rights and democracy watchdog, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), expressed concern in May last year at the increasing Dutch intolerance towards the one-million Muslim minority and the "climate of fear" under which the minority was living.
Dereliction of Duty
The authorities inaction on racist websites also drew fire from the ruling Christian Democrats (CDA) and the opposition Labour party.
CDA Member Mirjam Sterk and Labour's Aleid Wolfsen have submitted an interpellation over the failure to stand up to the worrying phenomenon.
Other MPs have blasted as unacceptable the justice ministry's argument that it can not keep pace with the rapid Internet development.
The Dutch parliament has adopted over the past few years a number of laws to combat extremism and online hatred.
A government report warned last year that the scale of racism and extremism are worryingly increasing among right-wing "skinhead" youths and posing major threats to Dutch national security.
The report warned that such radical right-wing youth groups are more dangerous on society than Muslim extremists.
