Eindhoven, Netherlands — The Muslim woman adjusted her head scarf and gazed wearily at her daughters' elementary school Friday, one of many Islamic sites attacked since a Muslim radical allegedly murdered a Dutch filmmaker who criticized Islam.
An explosion earlier in the week shattered windows and doors, and damaged the Muslim community's faith in the tolerance of its neighbors.
One mother said the attack made her afraid. "I always thought the Netherlands was the safest place in the whole world, but if you see all that's happening, I don't know anymore," said the woman, who didn't want to be quoted by name for fear of reprisals. "I didn't know what to tell my daughter. She asked me: 'Mommy, why us? All we did was go to school.'"
In Amsterdam, meanwhile, Queen Beatrix made her first public appearance since the slaying of Theo van Gogh and sought to assuage Muslims' anxieties by reaching out to Islamic youths.
One woman who met the monarch, 26-year-old Naziha Daoudi, said she had not felt safe on the streets since the Nov. 2 killing.
"We have to watch a lot of Dutch people watching us like we're criminals," said Daoudi, who works at the Argan Moroccan youth center. "The Dutch community doesn't know much about Islam. They think (Muslims) are all the same."
The arrest of Muslim militant Mohammed Bouyeri, 26, as the main suspect in the killing has been followed by what seems to be a cycle of retaliation between Christian and Muslim extremists. A half-dozen arson attacks on Muslim buildings were answered by fire bombings that caused minor damage at churches in Rotterdam, Utrecht and Amersfoort.
Students at an Islamic elementary school and their parents form a human chain Friday in Eindhoven, Netherlands. The school was bombed earlier this week by unknown assailants in the aftermath of the killing of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a suspected Islamic radical.
For Muslims, the conservative government's reaction to the slaying has been almost as disturbing as the violence: Officials have moved swiftly to tighten controls on the nation's Islamic minority.
On Friday, parliament asked the government to draft legislation that would compel Dutch mosques to employ only imams who have studied Islam in the Netherlands. Legislators also are considering laws that would enable the closure of mosques that spread non-Dutch values.
Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende promised "a hard-line approach to those who want to wreck" Dutch society. He also pledged more money to combat terrorist groups, stricter monitoring of foreign funding for Holland's roughly 500 mosques, and new government powers to revoke Dutch nationality for terrorism suspects with dual citizenship.
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