Dutch politician Geert Wilders was quoted as urging Muslims to dump half the Koran and saying he would chase the Prophet Mohammad out of the country if he was alive today.
AMSTERDAM: Dutch anti-immigration politician Geert Wilders was quoted on Tuesday as urging Muslims to dump half the Koran and saying he would chase the Prophet Mohammad out of the country if he was alive today.
"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 told in an interview.
Wilders, who is seen as an heir to murdered populist Pim Fortuyn and whose new party won nine seats out of the 150 in parliament in November elections, has warned of a 'tsunami of Islamisation' in a country home to 1 million Muslims.
"I know that we're not going to have a Muslim majority in the next couple of decades, but it is growing," he said.
"You no longer feel that you're living in your own country. There is a battle under way and we must defend ourselves. There will soon be more mosques than churches here."
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.
"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.
Maverick politician Fortuyn broke taboos with his criticism of Muslim immigrants in the Netherlands and his pronouncements that the country could not absorb anymore foreigners.
He was gunned down in 2002 by animal rights activists just days before an election which saw huge popular support for his party.
Nasr Joemann, secretary for the Contact Organisation for Muslims and Government, said he planned to raise the demonisation of Islam with the new Dutch cabinet, expected to be finalised in the next week after months of coalition talks.
"I don't think this sort of comment from a member of parliament is good for integration or for relations between Muslims and non-Muslims but we don't want to react to the content because we cannot take it seriously," he said.
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