Rabar – The German Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West (Pegida) group has placed a satirical figurine of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) at the entrance of As-Sunnah Mosque in the Hague, the Netherlands.
On Sunday, Pegida—notorious for targeting mosques in the Netherlands with Islamophobic acts—hung a banner with an obscene message insulting the prophet next to a mannequin dressed in traditional Arab male dress with a bearded face covered in dark paint.
Vanochtend is stg. as-Soennah door neonazi’s van Pegida op een verschrikkelijke manier aangevallen. Wij zijn vaker slachtoffer geweest van haat en bedreigingen uit neonazistische hoek, maar nooit eerder op zo’n lugubere wijze. Let op! Schokkende beelden! https://t.co/5vlBRkNHIy pic.twitter.com/MPYySMnlc1
— Al-Yaqeen (@alyaqeenweb) March 3, 2019
CCTV footage of the incident, which has circulated social media, shows three hooded individuals pulling the banners and mannequin from a vehicle parked in front of the mosque late at night.
Abdelhamid Taheri, the head of the mosque, told Dutch news outlet Omroep West that worshippers found the insulting messages when they arrived at the mosque to perform the morning prayer and immediately called the police.
To Taheri, “It is not an attack against the mosque alone, but an attack against the whole Muslim world.” He added that he has reported similar attacks on the mosque several times but they have continued.
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As-Sunnah Mosque and other mosques in the region have been targeted by Pegida on several occasions.
Last year during Ramadan, Pegida took advantage of Islam’s restriction on the consumption of pork, regarded as “impure,” to provoke Muslims by roasting pigs in front of Laleli Mosque in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, at the time of breaking the fast.
At the same time, Pegida had shared a series of posts on Facebook, encouraging its followers to participate in pig barbeques in front of many mosques, including As-Sunnah Mosque.
The Pegida followed in the steps of previous offensive drawings and caricatures insulting Prophet Muhammad.
Some of the most notorious satirical caricatures of Muhammad (PBUH) were published in Denmark in 2005, triggering outrage among Muslims across the world.
