Dutch Lawmaker Posts Anti-Islam Short Film on Internet
Geert Wilders, the Dutch right-wing politician, has kept his promise of publicizing his anti-Islam movie titled "Fitna," which translates in English as "ordeal." The short film is 17 minutes long and has been posted on video sharing site www.liveleak.com. Wilders allegedly had problems finding a host willing to post his movie.

Liveleak.com accepted but maintains that it does not agree with the movie's message and several of its staff were offended by Fitna. However, "our being offended is no reason to deny Mr Wilders the right to have his film seen," Liveleak wrote on its website.

"I make a distinction between the ideology of Islam and the Koran and Muslims. My problem is with the ideology not with the people.... I have nothing against Muslims," Geert Wilders told, per AFP. He is a member of a far-right party, Freedom, which holds 9 of the 150 seats in the Dutch parliament.

"Fitna" is "not a provocation, but ... it's five minutes before midnight and this is the last warning as far as I'm concerned," he said, AP further reports. Thus, Wilders appears to believe he is on a crusade to save the world from Islamization which will otherwise bring about doomsday.

While many in Netherlands and elsewhere live under the terror of a wave of attacks from extremist Muslims, triggered by the film's release, Muslim scholars have been less impressed by the movie. Maurits Berger, professor of Islam in the West at Leiden University, told AP that he found the movie less disturbing than he had expected. Instead, it is a series of "images and photos, headlines from recent years which we already know," he said to AP.

The movie's message is double-edged: it asks Muslims to "tear" away hatred from the Koran, and it asks non-Muslims to stop Islamisation. The short film ends with the caricature by Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard of the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb in his turban.

Geert Wilders, 44, was raised a Roman Catholic and his wife was allegedly a former believer of Islam. He has close ties with Israel and was suspected of being an Israeli agent, Dutch newspaper Telegraaf reported in May 2007.