Islam

Hajer Harzi, a board member of the Al Houda mosque in Geleen, received serious threats after she spoke to a parliamentary committee investigating the possible influence of extremist ideology from abroad on Dutch mosques. "You wouldn't wish that on anyone," Harzi said on talk show Op 1. She reported the threats to the police.

The leader of an Amsterdam mosque believes someone with bad intentions deliberately sliced an audio cable on the building's rooftop to prevent the religious group's first call-to-prayer from being amplified by an outdoor loudspeaker. The Blauw Moskee was set to announce the beginning of a prayer service just before 1 p.m., but visitors and passers-by were met only with the street noise typical of any Amsterdam Nieuw-West neighborhood.

The Blauwe Moskee in Amsterdam Nieuw-West wants to boost it's weekly call to prayer - the Adhan - through loudspeakers. A few dozen mosques in the Netherlands already do so, but the Blauwe Moskee will be the first in Amsterdam. The mosque's board is organizing a neighborhood meeting on Sunday afternoon to inform local residents about their intentions, imam Yassin Elforkani said to Het Parool.

Dutch people who regularly attend their church or mosque are more often active as volunteers than their fellow-believers who don't attend religious services. Practicing religious Dutch are also more likely to have confidence in their fellow human beings and in civil society organizations, Statistics Netherlands reported on Friday.

A demonstration by controversial anti-Islam organization Pegida near a mosque in Eindhoven turned more sinister on Sunday, with ten counter-protestors taken into custody. Four police officers suffered minor injuries in confrontations down the road from the Al-Fourqaan Mosque.

On Tuesday evening the 13 political party leaders responded to the shooting in Utrecht, in which three people were killed and three seriously injured, at the start of the last political debate before the Provincial States elections on Wednesday. PVV leader Geert Wilders and FvD leader Thierry Baudet decided to use their moment to blame the attack on Prime Minister Mark Rutte (VVD) and CDA leader Sybrand Buma, linking the shooting to the Netherlands' immigration and integration policy, NOS reports.

PVV leader Geert Wilders put forward a proposal to ban all forms of Islamic expressions in the Netherlands during the first day of the General Considerations, the parliamentary debate on the government's plans and budget for the next year, on Wednesday. The proposal was immediately shot down by the other parties, NU.nl reports.

PVV city councilor in The Hague Willie Dille posted a video on Facebook on Wednesday in which she said that she was gang-raped by Muslims in March last year. The 53-year-old politician looks tired and emaciated in the now-removed video, newspaper AD reports. The PVV released a statement asking that Dillie be left in peace.

Anti-Islam movement Pegida is planing to roast pigs on the spit in front of five mosques during Ramadan. The action is planned for mosques in Arnhem, Gouda, Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague, during the evening prayer, AD reports.

At least 30 Islamic organizations in the Netherlands have applied for and received funding from conservative Gulf States in recent years. This involves millions of euros coming to the Netherlands from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, NRC and Nieuwsuur report based on confidential government information they managed to get hold of.

The Amsterdam party for the elderly PvdO refuses to work with the D66 over a statement candidate councilor Yassmine El Ksaihi made about homosexuality in an interview with NRC in 2010. The D66 candidate said that "homosexuality is a sin in Islam".

"This statement is pure homophobia and seriously impedes the emancipation of homosexuals", Wil van Soest of the PvdO said to the Telegraaf. The party will not work with the D66 as long as it supports homophobia, according to the newspaper.