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| Dutch far-right politician Wilders |
Dutch police have arrested a 26-year-old man suspected of threatening to attack far-right politician Geert Wilders over his plan to hold a contest of cartoons depicting Islamโs Prophet Mohammad, a police spokesman said on Wednesday.
The man, whose nationality has not been determined, was taken into custody on Tuesday at Central Station in The Hague, spokesman Jan Rensen said.
He is believed to have posted a video on Facebook on Monday in which he said he was five minutes from the parliament building.
โOnly that blasphemer (Wilders) is my target,โ a man said in the video, which was shown on national broadcaster NOS. โI believe that God will help me succeedโฆtheyโre making jokes about our Prophet.โ
Images of Prophet Mohammad are traditionally forbidden in Islam as idolatrous. Caricatures are regarded by most Muslims as highly offensive.
In 2005, Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of Prophet Mohammad that sparked a wave of protest across the Muslim world and several attempts to kill either its editor or cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
Ten years later, a pair of Islamists stormed the offices of magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris, known for publishing satirical cartoons of the Prophet, and killed 12 people.
Wilders, whose far-right Freedom Party has become the Netherlandsโ second-largest and pushes anti-Islam and populist themes, plans to hold his contest in his partyโs office in the parliament building. He says it is his right to do so under the countryโs freedom of speech laws.
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte has said he does not endorse Wilderโs contest but that he will defend the parliamentarianโs right to hold it.
Wilders, who is appealing his 2016 conviction on charges of encouraging discrimination against Moroccans, said he was glad the man had been arrested.
โCrazy that this happens after announcing a cartoon contest,โ he said on Twitter.
The suspect is due to be brought before a judge on Thursday, police said.
In Pakistan, several thousand people gathered in the eastern city of Lahore for a demonstration organised by Tehreek-e-Labbaik, an Islamist party, to protest against Wildersโ planned contest.
Party leader Khadim Hussain Rizvi called for the Dutch ambassador to Islamabad to be expelled.
