THE HAGUE — With the threat of lawsuits hanging over his head, far-right Dutch lawmaker Geert Wilders has decided to edit his controversial anti-Qur'an documentary, while the government continues efforts to contain the fallout of the crisis.
Wilders told the Dutch ANP news agency he will remove a Danish cartoon showing a man said to be Prophet Muhammad (peace and blessing be upon him) with a bomb in his turban.
He plans to substitute the controversial drawing with another caricature of the prophet.
Wilder is not changing the drawing because of its offensive nature but simply because Dutch cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has accused him of using the image without his permission.
"I won't accept my cartoon being taken out of its original context and used in a completely different one," he said last week.
MP Wilder will also remove a photo of a Dutch-Moroccan rapper who was wrongly identified as the killer of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh in 2004.
He will give credit to a Dutch journalist for the use of sound bites from an interview he had with Van Gogh shortly before his murder.
The 15-minute documentary, posted on a video-sharing website on Thursday, March 27, intersperses images of terror attacks with verses from the Qur'an.
Dutch Muslim leader Mohamed Rabbae is also planning to sue Wilders over inciting hatred against Muslims in the Netherlands, estimated at one million of the 16-million population.
Dutch laws forbid incitement to hatred on the basis of race, religion or ideology, gender and sexual preference.
The maximum sentence for such crimes is two years in prison and a fine.
- Scrambled
With condemnation of the documentary pouring in from across the world, the Dutch government pursued painstaking efforts to contain Muslim anger.
"We are aware of the concerns and feelings in the international Muslim community about this film," Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told the ambassadors of 27 Muslim countries on Monday.
"But injured feelings should never be an excuse for aggression and threats," he stressed, adding that the film does not reflect his government's views on Islam.
"Let us keep a cool head and warm relations."
The government has reportedly distanced itself from Wilders and tried unsuccessfully to convince him not to broadcast the film, fearing it would trigger protests in Netherlands and overseas and strain ties with Muslim countries.
Dozens of Indonesians protested outside the Dutch embassy on Monday, hurling eggs and plastic water bottles into the compound.
Malaysia's Islamic PAS party on Monday urged Muslims worldwide to boycott Dutch products in protest.
Former prime minister Mahathir Mohamad said Saturday that if the world's 1.3 billion Muslims boycotted Dutch products, the country's industries would be forced to shut down.
Dutch businesses have already threatened to sue Wilders if his film led to an economic boycott of their products.
Wrapping up their annual summit Sunday, Arab leaders expressed concern at rising Islamophobia around the world.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon dismissed it as "offensively anti-Islamic" while the European Union rejected its equation between Islam and violence.
This comes as a Dutch politician is planning to broadcast a more provocative cartoon movie about the Prophet.
