Anti-Islam Pegida likened to KKK for smearing pig's blood at mosque site
Some 14 members of anti-Islamic organization Pegida Nederland held an early Sunday morning protest action against the construction of a mosque, with at least one person accused of dousing the site with pig's blood. A video that the organization posted on Twitter and Facebook shows a man disguised as a priest planting a wooden cross at the mosque site, and then using a toilet brush to splatter the blood on the cross and around the location.
Enschede mayor Onno van Veldhuizen wholeheartedly condemned the action of Pegida, which occurred in his town. "Disgusting. This is not our ethics," he said, and compared the group to the Ku Klux Klan. "If you go around so sure of yourself with a cross early in the morning, that link comes to my mind."
Van Veldhuizen is now researching whether legal action may be taken against the extremist group.
The Muslim faith does not allow practitioners to come in contact with the flesh or blood of swine because of a perception that it is impure.
This is not the first time Pegida causes trouble in Enschede, Overijssel. In September, Pegida held a demonstration in Enschede near the Blijdensteinpark, drawing a counterprotest from the Antifascistische Actie (AFA). Between the march and the protest, 32 people were arrested.
In addition to this, last year five men where arrested and sentenced to four years in prison for throwing Molotov cocktails at a mosque in Enschede. The perpetrators wanted to threaten the municipality of Enschede and the Muslim community in order to avoid the development of an asylum seekers' centre.
