Murder link with Saudi Arabia?

Populist broadsheet De Telegraaf has published a biography of Mohammed B., who murdered Theo van Gogh. It states that B. visited Saudi Arabia at least two times. De Telegraaf has a tendency to jump to the chase and to exaggerate. However, if this is true, it is a legitimate matter to ask if there's any connection with Wahhabism, a fundamentalist branch of Islam which is the state religion in Saudi Arabia, and the faith Osama Bin Laden claims to be part of. In that case, it would show yet again the need for Western countries to put more pressure on the government of this country, which features one of the most orthodox forms of Islam in the world.

On a side note, according to the article B. also visited the El Tawheed mosque, who on their website claim one of their goals is the foundation of an Islamic society. This mosque got rather infamous around here because it sold a book which states the proper way to treat gays was to throw them off high buildings.

For the same reason that the murder of Van Gogh is an appalling attack on an essential Western value, namely freedom of speech, I partially defended the right of the mosque to sell such books in an earlier posting (partially in English, partially in Dutch). My core point at the time, which I still agree with, was: 'Democracy doesn't earn its right to exist by virtue of allowing only those opinions we all agree with. As J of N once said: it's not that hard to love your friends.'

(Still, I guess it's a good thing there are no skyscrapers in Amsterdam...)

10:55

permalink comment(s) (2)

« 

 »