Dutch MP Shrugs Off Fears Over His Anti-Islam Film

Dutch anti-terror coordinator Tjibbe Joustra this month said it had increased the risk of Islamist reprisals in the Netherlands.

A right-wing Dutch politician who made a short film depicting Islam as a fascist religion said in Israel on Sunday he disagreed with an assessment that it increased the risk of terrorist attacks in the Netherlands.

The Dutch government disavowed MP Geert Wilders' 17-minute "Fitna" when it came out in March but the film was widely circulated over the Internet.

Dutch anti-terror coordinator Tjibbe Joustra this month said it had increased the risk of Islamist reprisals in the Netherlands.

"People who are willing and even advocating to use violence in order to achieve their terrible goals do not need a movie," Wilders said during a visit to promote the film.

Fitna, a Koranic term sometimes translated as "strife", intersperses shots of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and other bombings with quotations from the Koran. It has drawn diplomatic protests from Muslim countries but provoked little street violence.

Wilders told Reuters that Fitna was a "great success" that had helped buoy his opposition Freedom Party in a country whose 16 million population includes 1 million Muslims.

"After two days, more than 5 million people watched and by now, half a year later, more than 20 million people watched it," he said.

"I acknowledge the fact that the majority of the Muslims in the Netherlands or Europe indeed are moderate. But still, the Islamic ideology will change our entire nation, our entire culture, our entire identity, and at the end of the day will cost us our freedom."