Dissent murdered

The director of Submission, a film deeply critical of the Islamic faith and its treatment of women (I haven't seen it), was shot dead in Amsterdam this morning:

A filmmaker who was the great-grandnephew of painter Vincent van Gogh was slain on an Amsterdam street Tuesday after receiving death threats over a movie he made criticizing the treatment of women under Islam.

A 26-year-old suspect with dual Dutch-Moroccan nationality was arrested after a shootout with officers that left him wounded, police said.

Filmmaker Theo van Gogh, 47, had been threatened after the August airing of the movie Submission, which he made with a right-wing Dutch politician who had renounced the Islamic faith of her birth.

Police had kept watch on Van Gogh's house as protection immediately after the film's release, but it was dropped because there was no concrete evidence of a threat, public prosecutor Leo de Wit said.
[...]
Authorities had felt the more likely target of revenge attacks was the film's writer, Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a member of parliament who frequently has outraged fellow Muslims by criticizing Islamic customs and the failure of Muslim families to adopt Dutch ways. She has been and remains under police protection.

Police said Van Gogh's killer shot and stabbed his victim and left a note on his body. They would not reveal the contents of the note.

It's worth remembering a scene in Martin Himel's Global TV documentary, Jenin: Massacring Truth, in which a cartoonist for The Independent is asked about his cartoon showing Ariel Sharon eating a baby, and why he wouldn't draw Arafat in such a manner. He responds, glibly, that "Jews don't issue fatwas."

Posted by damian at November 2, 2004 12:55 PM