Anti-Islam Dutch lawmaker says no more blasphemous caricatures, for now

Decision comes after two American tourists were stabbed by an Afghan at Amsterdam’s central station last week

CERNOBBIO: Dutch lawmaker and anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders has said he has no plans, for now, to revive the blasphemous caricatures contest after it emerged as a motive for a stabbing in Amsterdam last week.

Wilders, speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Italy, expressed shock over the attack, in which a man stabbed and injured two American tourists at Amsterdam’s central station. Dutch media identified the assailant as a 19-year-old Afghan.

The attack came after Wilders cancelled plans to hold the controversial cartoon competition, which had also drawn a complaint by Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who said blasphemous caricatures could incite hate and intolerance.



“For now I will not be doing it soon again, for sure,” Wilders said at the Ambrosetti conference, where he had been invited to speak on the future of the European Union.

“On the one hand you say that you should never give in to people who threaten to use violence against freedom of speech,” he said, adding that he had spent 15 years living in safe houses and escorted by a security detail due to constant death threats.



“If it would have been only about me, I would have continued and done it again but it was not only about me — it was about innocent people,” he said.