Hague mayor wants law against suspicious mosque financing

Mayor Pauline Krikke of The Hague wants a new law that will make the state and municipalities cooperate better together to stop undesirable influencing that comes with foreign financing of Islamic institutions in the Netherlands, she said to Nieuwsuur.

According to Krikke, she does not have a problem with foreign financing in itself. But there is a problem if the financing comes with obligations to spread undesirable messages and standpoints that undermine the Netherlands' way of life and democratic rule of law.

A examples she mentioned many foreign preachers visiting the Netherlands, and women being addressed on the street for the way they dress. Krikke also referred to statements about female circumcision made by people in the As Soennah Mosque in The Hague. There are reports that this mosque is financed by a controversial investor from Kuwait. If that is true, it is "very serious and very worrying", Krikke previously said, according to ANP.

"It is not about Islam, but about stopping disruptive messages", Krikke said to Nieuwsuur. "That are at odds with what we in the Netherlands strive for and have laid down in laws, we do not want that in our neighborhoods and districts. But we do not have enough resources to act against it."