Beheaded, bloodied doll found in new Amsterdam mosque incident
A bloodied, beheaded doll was found in front of the Emir Sultan Mosque in Amsterdam Noord early Thursday morning. The doll's body, found laying below the severed head attached by metal hook to a fence, had a note denouncing "Islamization" pinned to it.
"I'm asking you not to worry about this incident," mosque president Kamber Şener wrote on Facebook, saying they reported the incident to police. "I hope they will find the perpetrators as soon as they can," he continued, asking for the city to unite against such incidents.
"Islam is inseparable from brutal beheadings," the note on the doll stated. "The Islamization must stop! Also, no Diyanet mega-mosque in Noord that is connected to dictator Erdogan!"
"Mega-mosque" possibly refers to a planned new religious building announced a few weeks ago. The foundation that runs the mosque stated plans to construct a new facility in Amsterdam Noord with input from the community. The plan was made public, and written in Turkish, on the mosque's Facebook page at the end of December. "Diyanet" often refers to Turkey's "Directorate of Religious Affairs", though it is not known if that is what the doll's note is referencing.
Twitter account @Reinververzet tweeted several photos of the doll, the letter, and the mosque at 4:10 a.m. with a message praising the disturbing action as a protest against large mosques in Amsterdam Noord. A police spokesperson told AT5 the person running the Twitter account was under investigation, but a Tweet from the account denied involvement in the incident.
The Emir Sultan Mosque serves a predominately Turkish community in Amsterdam. It shares a name with a mosque in Bursa, Turkey, that was first build in the 1300's, and was reconstructed in the mid 19th century after the original was razed in 1804.
