The keynote speaker at Sunday’s Muhammad cartoon-drawing contest in Texas was Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a longtime target of Muslim extremists in Europe.
Mr. Wilders is an ally of anti-Shariah organization American Freedom Defense Initiative, which sponsored the event that came under attack from two gunmen and a possible car bomb Sunday.
He also was a friend of two Dutchmen assassinated by self-styled mujaheddin in Europe — politician Pim Fortuyn and film director Theo Van Gogh. He has himself been the object of both numerous death threats from Muslims and a cold shoulder from Europe’s dominant political parties who dismiss anti-Shariah measures as unacceptable bigotry.
Al Qaeda has released a “hit list” that included a poster declaring him and a handful of other Westerners in mugshots as “Wanted: Dead or Alive for crimes against Islam.”
Mr. Wilders is a co-founder of the Dutch Party for Freedom, which advocates restrictions on Islam in public life in secular Europe and on Muslim immigration. He has campaigned to stop the “Islamization of the Netherlands” and for a ban on new mosque-building.
Mr. Wilders tweeted from inside the event that the attack was ongoing and that he was leaving the building.
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He tweeted a photo of himself surrounded by camouflaged men that he said was taken just before the shooting began.
“Thank God the heroes of SWAT-team prevented the worst,” he wrote.
• Victor Morton can be reached at vmorton@washingtontimes.com.
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