Dutch far-right politician Geert Wilders announced on Sunday what he called the winner of a contest for caricaturing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad, more than a year after he shelved a similar event due to the fear of a violent backlash.
In a tweet late on Saturday, Wilders called on people to send in their Muhammad cartoons.
“Freedom of speech must prevail over violence and Islamic fatwas,” the leader of the largest opposition party in the Dutch parliament wrote.
Wilders cancelled a similar contest in August last year after Dutch police arrested a 26-year-old man who had threatened to kill him over his anti-Islam stance.
In November a Dutch court sentenced a Pakistani man to 10 years behind bars for planning to assassinate Wilders.
At the time, plans to hold the contest prompted large demonstrations in Pakistan, organised by Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik, which called on Islamist countries to sever all ties with the Netherlands.
In 2005, Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of Muhammad that sparked demonstrations across the Muslim world as well as several attempts to kill either its editor or cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.
Some 10,000 protesters participated in Rizvi’s march, chanting “we will die to protect the honor of the Prophet,” and holding a large banner that said they were holding a “peaceful protest.”
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Wilders, 56, known for his peroxide bouffant hairdo and firebrand anti-immigration and anti-Islam statements, lives in a safe house and has been granted 24-hour protection by the Dutch state.
Images of the Prophet Mohammad are forbidden in Islam as idolatrous. Caricatures are regarded by Muslims as highly offensive.
