Human Rights Fears at Dutch Inquiry Into Muslim Population

Concerned that the country may have become a hotbed of Islamist fundamentalism, the Netherlands is to investigate the activities of its 800,000 Muslims.

The survey of beliefs and activities called for by the lower house of parliament has alarmed human rights groups.

It will cover the funding and management of mosques and the training of clerics, and will seek to discover how many Muslims can legitimately be classed as fundamentalists.

This year's general election, in which the anti-immigration party founded by the murdered libertarian Pim Fortuyn came second, has created a wave of anti-Muslim feeling in the Netherlands, reinforced by a recent television report on the behaviour of some imams.

The inquiry is strongly supported by Jan Peter Balkenende's rightwing coalition government, led by Christian Democrats and including Fortuyn's party.

Nova, a current affairs programme, secretly recorded four imams railing against the west and broadcast the tapes last month, provoking the indignation of Dutch citizens.

One imam in the Hague is heard asking Allah to "take care of" President George Bush and the Israeli prime minister, Ariel Sharon, and another in Amsterdam sings the praises of Palestinian suicide bombers.

Others make derogatory remarks about women, angering the egalitarian-minded Dutch, who are still incensed by the Rotterdam imam Khalil el-Moumni, who described homosexuality as a "contagious disease".

Prosecutors are studying the tapes to decide whether the imams broke the law and incited others to violence.

Islam and Citizenship, a lobby representing Muslims in the Netherlands, welcomed the investigation as an opportunity to show that most Muslims are moderates, but suggested that Muslims were being discriminated against.

"One has to wonder whether the government doesn't apply different standards to different sections of the population," its spokesman Yassin Hartog said. "There has been no such investigation into fundamentalist Christian groups for example."

He said the problem of Islamic fundamentalism in the Netherlands had been vastly exaggerated. The report which did so much to provoke the investigation concerned only four or five mosques out of a national total of 500, he pointed out.

But he admitted that his organisation was fighting a battle against public prejudice which was difficult to win.

"I am afraid that the general public will mostly remember these bearded men talking about hitting women and praying to God to punish Sharon. But instead of playing the victim and being defensive it is better to welcome such initiatives... The main thing that this investigation will do is put the whole question of imams into context."

A recent intelligence service report which suggested that young Muslims were being recruited at mosques for anti-western missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere also stirred up feelings.

The government is considering how it can school imams in Dutch values - including attitudes to homosexuality and women's rights - and whether to license only those born in the Netherlands.