Amsterdam - Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende confirmed Friday that Pakistan has demanded the Netherlands to take legal action in the matter of the controversial film about the Koran made by legislator Geert Wilders. Speaking on a Dutch current affairs programme, Balkenende said the Dutch ambassador in Islamabad had been called in by the Pakistani authorities, who described the film titled Fitna as "unnecessarily offensive" to Muslims.
Asked if this meant the Dutch public prosecutor will speed up its efforts to investigate whether Fitna violates Dutch anti-discrimination laws, Balkenende said "the Netherlands is a constitutional state and will follow its own pace and procedures."
Meanwhile Vice Prime Minister Andre Rouvoet of the modern-orthodox Christian Union expressed his surprise about the praise from the orthodox Christian party SGP for Fitna.
The Christian Union and the orthodox Christian SGP, the latter of which does not allow women to be elected, are small Protestant parties, holding, respectively, 6 and 2 seats in the 150-seat parliament.
Rouvout said he was "surprised" by the SGP statement earlier Friday saying the film had been "made with care." "I absolutely do not think the film was carefully made, he said."
Muslims, Christians, Jews, humanists and atheists in the Netherlands are expected to take part in a special debate about the film in the Amsterdam's Slotervaart neighbourhood, notorious for its migrant-related crime and integration problems.
Wilders has been invited by the event's organizers, the Council for Religions in Amsterdam and the Union of Moroccan Mosques in Amsterdam.
