Netherlands: Death threats quickly ignored

This is a translation of an excerpt from an opinion article by Hans van der Beek in Het Parool about the issue of the death threats against Ewout Jansen and how it was quickly turned into a tempest in a teacup.

What's the story?

Eric van den Berg, a report for the student paper Folia, wanted to show several quotes of Jansen's to an imam, in order to ask if you can make jokes about Islam and therefore he called up the Assoena mosque.

According to Van den Berg he got the mobile number of a "Mr. Kabli", who arranged an interview with imam Mohammed Bouljhaf and who acted as translator during the interview. There were three other people present, at least one of who belonged to the mosque management.

After the imam left the room, Kabli began his tirade. A Muslim who hears jokes about Islam can hit, kill of "do off" with the joker. Theo van Gogh was after all also warned often enough.

According to Van den Berg, the others present did not do anything during the objectionable statements and that can also be heard on the tape which he recorded during the interview.

Folia placed the article on their website, weblog Geen Stijl copied it over and from there things went very fast.

Aboutaleb felt immediately that this could become a real row and hurried over to the mosque. The Assoena management assured him that they were completely dismayed and that they distanced themselves completely from those statements. Mr. Kabli was just an accidental visitor and had nothing further to do with the mosque.

After twenty minutes the alderman had heard enough and in any case had to hurry off to Utrecht, where he was giving a lecture at which the queen was present, about the centuries old religious tolerance in Amsterdam

Journalists who called the mosque for a response were referred to Aboutaleb's spokespeople. He repeated the mosque's version, that the man was a visitor and nothing else. Newspapers and TV programs therefore deleted the item or reported it on a much smaller scale.

Aboutaleb did not think it necessary to contact the Folia reporter. According to his spokesperson his priority was to check whether the mosque agreed with the statements of the translator and that did not appear to be the case.

Case closed.

Is that right? It is definitely not unusual that statements that are made in an unguarded moment would be later twisted. But if the mosque leaders intervened during the interview, as they claim, it should be audible on the tape.

It appears in any case that Kabli is more than just a chance visitor. Aboutaleb should have at least sorted that out better before he unthinkingly adopted the mosque's startled response.

Source: Parool (Dutch)