page_title: Theo van Gogh (film director)
section_title: Aftermath
hierarchical_section_title: Theo van Gogh (film director) / Murder / Aftermath
caption_attribution_description: English: Memorial/sculpture by Dutch sculptor Jeroen Henneman
context_page_description: Theodoor "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch director and film and television producer, actor and author. He directed "Submission: Part 1", a short film written by Somali writer and politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which criticized the treatment of women in Islam in strong terms. On 2 November 2004, van Gogh was assassinated by Mohammed Bouyeri, a Dutch-Moroccan Muslim who objected to the film's controversial message. The last film van Gogh had completed before his death, 06/05, was, ironically, a fictional exploration of the assassination of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. It was released posthumously in December 2004, a month after van Gogh's assassination.
context_section_description: The day after the murder, Dutch police arrested eight people allegedly belonging to a group later referred to as the Hofstad Network. Six detainees were Dutch-Moroccans, one was Dutch-Algerian, and one had dual Spanish-Moroccan nationality. The Dutch Complaints Bureau for Discrimination on the Internet (MDI) received many complaints about websites allegedly praising the murder and making death threats against other people.
  At the same time, starting with four attempted arson attacks on mosques in the weekend of 5–7 November, there were retaliatory violent incidents against Muslims, including a bomb that exploded at a Muslim school in Eindhoven. The Dutch Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia recorded a total of 106 violent incidents in November against Muslim targets. The National Dutch Police Services Agency (KLPD) recorded 31 occasions of violence against mosques and Islamic schools between 23 November and 13 March 2005. An arson attack destroyed a Muslim primary school in Uden in December 2004. By 8 November, Christian churches were reported as targets of vandalism and arson attacks in turn. A report for the Anne Frank Foundation and the University of Leiden, accounted for a total of 174 violent incidents between 2–30 November; it said that mosques were the target of violence 47 times, and churches 13 times.
  The murder widened and polarized the debate in the Netherlands about the social position of its more than one million Muslim residents. It also put the country's liberal tradition further into question, coming only two years after Pim Fortuyn's murder. In an apparent reaction against controversial statements about the Islamic, Christian, and Jewish religions—such as those van Gogh had made—the Dutch Minister of Justice, Christian Democrat Piet Hein Donner, suggested Dutch blasphemy laws should either be applied more stringently or made more strict. The liberal D66 party suggested scrapping the blasphemy laws altogether.
  Geert Wilders, at the time an independent member of the House of Representatives, advocated a five-year halt to immigration from non-Western societies, saying: "The Netherlands has been too tolerant to intolerant people for too long. We should not import a retarded political Islamic society into our country".
  Wilders and Ayaan Hirsi Ali went into hiding for several weeks. Wilders has been under the protection of bodyguards ever since, and Hirsi Ali eventually relocated to the United States.
  Theo van Gogh's son claims he has been attacked on several occasions by young people of Moroccan and Turkish descent, and that the police did not provide him with help or protection. The police denied receiving any report of attacks.
caption: De Schreeuw (The Scream) is a memorial for Theo van Gogh and a symbol of the freedom of speech
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