Islam

Jawed S., the 19-year-old man arrested for stabbing two American tourists at Amsterdam Central Station on Friday, told the authorities that he committed the attack because people in the Netherlands insult Islam, the Public Prosecutor said on Monday afternoon, NU.nl reports.

Over the past ten years Dutch Muslims' faith became increasingly important to them, according to a study by social and cultural planning office SCP. The researchers attribute this partly to increased tensions between Muslims and non-Muslims and the feeling of exclusion that stems from that, NOS reports.

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.

Controversial imam Fawaz Jneid from The Hague called Rotterdam mayor Ahmad Aboutaleb an 'enemy of Islam' and a renegade Muslim in an hour long preach on social media, reports the Telegraaf, who had the Arabic preach translated to Dutch by a credited interpreter.

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.

The U.S. State Department distanced itself this week from the factually inaccurate picture the new American Envoy to the Netherlands painted about Islamic fundamentalist rioting in the Netherlands in 2015. At an event that year, Peter Hoekstra declared the existence of areas in the Netherlands where politicians were set on fire and effective "no-go zones" that were too dangerous for authorities

The leader of the Utrecht faction of anti-Islam party PVV surprised many by suggesting he hoped that a prominent mosque in the city would go up in flames. The comments brought immediate condemnation from politicians of several parties in the area.

Henk van Deún represented the PVV during a political talk radio show on a local channel. He was joined by the leader of Turkish and multicultural party Denk, Mahmut Sungur, who commented that he wanted to see the city's Ulu Mosque be recognized as a proud local landmark.

PVV leader Geert Wilders announced that he is pressing discrimination charges against Prime Minister Mark Rutte. According to Wilders, Rutte and his government are significantly discriminating against "ordinary Dutch", he said to broadcaster NOS.

Two men wearing balaclava masks climbed onto the roof of a new Islamic high school in Amsterdam Nieuw-West and hung an anti-Islam banner from the facade on Monday morning. The police are at the scene and trying to talk the men into getting off the school's roof, AT5 and Het Parool report.

Two Rotterdam students planned to vacation in the United States, but they got no further than JFK Airport in New York. There the American authorities decided to deny them access to the country. "Because we are Muslim", Othmane Charib and Ismail Aghzanay said in a video they made from London after being deported. 

"We were treated like criminals. We had to sit back to back with each other and weren't allowed to make eye contact." Charib tells in the video. "They took our pictures and fingerprints. Our tickets were torn to pieces. Dogs are treated better."

The VVD and CDA again firmly stated that they will not work with anti-Islam party PVV and its leader Geert Wilders. Formation negotiator Herman Tjeenk Willink asked VVD leader Mark Rutte and CDA leader Sybrand Buma to put in writing why they will not form a government with Wilders. They dismissed Wilders as untrustworthy and "increasingly radical", the Volkskrant reports