Geert Wilders said in an interview published last week that Muslims should dump half their holy book if they wanted to stay in the Netherlands and that he would chase Islam’s Prophet Mohammad out of the country if he was alive today.
‘The Saudi embassy in The Hague has begun moves with the Dutch foreign ministry against the remarks of rightwing parliamentarian Geert Wilders,’ Saudi Arabia’s Al Watan newspaper said.
‘It (embassy) appealed to the appropriate authorities on the need for Wilders insulting statements to be withdrawn and an apology be given to Muslims … The embassy has demanded that the Dutch side put an end to such statements and actions.’
Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam and home to its holiest shrines, triggered worldwide protest among Muslims last year over Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet when it withdrew its ambassador to Copenhagen.
Wilders, who has lived under heavy guard since 2004 when a Dutch-Moroccan killed filmmaker and Islam critic Theo van Gogh, has campaigned to ban the Muslim burqa veil, wants to freeze immigration and ban new mosques and religious schools.
‘Islam is a violent religion. If Mohammad lived here today I could imagine chasing him out of the country tarred and feathered as an extremist,’ Wilders said in the interview with the daily De Pers.
‘If Muslims want to stay here they must tear out half of the Koran and throw it away. They shouldn’t listen to the imam. I’ve read the Koran … and I know that there are enough awful things in it,’ he said.
