The Netherlands granted Moroccan Islamist Hassan Bakir political asylum in 2007. He was arrested in Spain in July and fears that he will be extradited back to Morocco, where he faces the death penalty. Bakir denies that he is a terrorist. He says he is shocked by the lack of support he’s getting from the Netherlands: “It turns out that even in Europe I am not safe from the tentacles of the Moroccan secret service.”
By Michel Hoebink & Mohamed Amezian
Hassan Bakir thought he was safe; he’d been granted political refugee status by the Dutch government and believed this would protect him. But he was arrested by the Spanish police when he visited that country with his family in July. He has been in detention for the last two months now, waiting for a Spanish judge to rule on an extradition request by Moroccan authorities.
Political conviction
Bakir is secretary-general of Shabiba Islamiyya, a Moroccan Islamist opposition group that was established in 1972. In 1985, when he was just 18 years old, he was sentenced to death in absentia for his political activities. He spent 20 years in exile in Libya before coming to the Netherlands in 2005; he was granted political asylum two years later. He now lives in the Dutch town of Gouda and teaches at the Islamic University of Rotterdam.
As an Islamist, Bakir does not enjoy much moral support from the Netherlands. After his arrest in Spain, articles appeared in Dutch newspapers wondering how a ‘wanted terrorist’ could have been granted asylum in the Netherlands.
The Freedom Party (PVV) led by anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders asked questions about it in the Dutch parliament. Until now, Bakir has heeded the advice of his Spanish lawyer and refused to comment on his case, but he has decided that it’s time to defend himself against allegations that he is a terrorist.
Bakir says the accusations in the Dutch newspapers claiming that he’s a dangerous terrorist are completely unfounded:
“My conviction in 1985 was purely political and had nothing to do with terrorism. Anyone familiar with Moroccan politics knows that, at that time, the smallest act of political opposition could lead to the death sentence. The Shabiba Islamiyya is not a movement that strives to establish an Islamic state by violent means, as Dutch newspapers wrote.”
Bakir points to an official document of the movement dated 12 September 2001, in which it strongly denounces the 9/11 attacks and any other act of terrorism.
Reconciliation
After King Mohammed VI came to power, the Moroccan regime reconciled itself with almost all the opposition groups that had gone into exile during the reign of his father. According to Bakir, despite its strenuous efforts, the Shabiba Islamiyya is the only group excluded from the reconciliation: “We want to go home. But all our efforts towards dialogue ended in refusal by the Moroccan authorities.”
Bakir suspects that the Moroccan secret service is behind this refusal: “They portray us as dangerous terrorists so as to justify their own existence.”
Bakir believes that the Moroccan secret service was behind both his arrest in Spain and the allegations made by Dutch journalists, who based themselves on unspecified ‘sources within the Dutch-Moroccan community’. “If I’m really so dangerous,” asks Bakir, “Why did Morocco never ask the Dutch government to extradite me?”
Hassan Bakir is disappointed with the support he getting from the Dutch government, but is full of praise for the Dutch embassy in Madrid: “They got me a lawyer and officially told he Spanish authorities that I have been granted political asylum in the Netherlands.”
But he thinks the The Hague should exert much more pressure: “I have political asylum in a European country! I think they are afraid to do more because of the way I was portrayed in the Dutch press and because of the questions raised by Geert Wilders’ Freedom Party in parliament.”
Fair trial
Eric Goldstein of Human Rights Watch in Washington DC says that extraditing Hassan Bakir would contravene international law. “Spain is not allowed to extradite him because it is highly probable that he will not get a fair trial in Morocco and that he will be subjected to torture.”
Goldstein thinks the Dutch government should make greater efforts on his behalf: “The Dutch government did not grant him political asylum for no reason. It is their duty to make sure that his rights are protected.”
According to Aad Meijer of the Dutch foreign affairs ministry, the Netherlands cannot do much more for Hassan Bakir at the moment: “His case is being heard by a Spanish judge. We can’t interfere with that.”
(jric)
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This man used his pen and his papers for the defense of freedom and reform in Morocco
He was always in his articles and statements rejects terrorism
I am proud of him, gives a good example of Moroccans in the Netherlands.
It's so sickening that Muslim terrorists who are evil criminals can enjoy such free life in the West, and demand so arrogantly the protection from the majority non-Muslim Western culture and civilization that they hate so much! Whereas non-Muslims especially Christians and Jews can be murdered, tortured and discriminated without impunity especially in savage Islamic-ruled countries. These are the genuine refugees that the West must protect and bring to Europe, especially to counter horrifying Islamic dominance and aggression in the West, all due to the Socialist Left betrayal!
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Trust me, it is better if there is a war between the seas. it is better if there is a war between countries. it is better if there is a war between ideology. rather then if there is a war between you and your wife, between father and son, between whoever inside your home. choose for yourself would you like a war outside of your home, or you like a war inside your home. there is no other option. if you want not to make war but to make love, then ban islam. Because islam is a war and not is a love. Unless you kick it out of your country, islam will come in front of your door and you will see a lot of messes & destruction behind it.
muslim can not be trusted! muslim only loyal to islam. unless the country bow down to islam, muslim won't let himself ruled by the law, because the only law they follow is the law of sharia. Dutch should ban every muslim immigrant back to where they came from, unless they leave islam. There are many religion. islam is not even a religion. that's why muslim should leave islam if they want to come to the west. otherwise, the western will be collapse because of the clash of civilization. And of course the winner will be always islam, because islam has the rule, islam has the system, islam has the military, and islam has the economy. Ban islam before islam come in front of your house.
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