Wilders says no more Prophet cartoons, for now

CERNOBBIO, Italy: Dutch lawmaker and anti-Islam campaigner Geert Wilders has said he has no plans, for now, to revive a competition of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed after it emerged as a motive for a stabbing in Amsterdam last week.

Wilders, speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Italy, expressed shock over the attack, in which a man stabbed and injured two American tourists at Amsterdam’s central station. Dutch media identified the assailant as a 19-year- old Afghan.

The attack came after Wilders cancelled plans to hold the cartoon competition, which had also drawn a complaint by Pakistan’s new foreign minister, who said cartoon depictions of the Prophet could incite hate and intolerance.

“For now I will not be doing it soon again, for sure,” Wilders told Reuters at the Ambrosetti conference, where he had been invited to speak on the future of the European Union.

“On the one hand you say that you should never give in to people who threaten to use violence against freedom of speech,” he said, adding that he had spent 15 years living in safe houses and escorted by a security detail due to constant death threats.

“If it would have been only about me, I would have continued and done it again but it was not only about me – it was about innocent people,” he said. — Reuters