TIMELINE-Turbulence in Dutch politics over Islam

Thu Mar 27, 2008 7:54pm GMT
 
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(Reuters) - The Netherlands is trying to contain the fallout from an anti-Islam film made by right-wing lawmaker Geert Wilders, which has angered Muslims and sparked protests in many countries.

Following is a chronology of political turbulence in the country since 2002:

March 2002 - Ex-sociology professor Pim Fortuyn forms List Pim Fortuyn (LPF) party on a populist, anti-immigration platform, taking the political scene by storm and breaking the Dutch tradition of tolerance.

April 17 - Labour Prime Minister Wim Kok's centre-left government resigns after a report on the 1995 Srebrenica massacre accuses politicians of sending Dutch United Nations peacekeepers to Bosnia on an impossible mission.

May 6 - Fortuyn is shot dead by a leftist activist.

May 15 - Fortuyn's LPF comes second in election behind the Christian Democrats (CDA) and Kok's coalition is routed. A CDA-led centre-right coalition with LPF and VVD free market liberals collapses after 87 days, making it the shortest-lived Dutch government since 1945.

January 22, 2003 - CDA clinches victory in new election.

May - CDA, VVD and centrist D66 agree to form a government with CDA's Jan Peter Balkenende as prime minister.

November 2, 2004 - Filmmaker Theo van Gogh is murdered as he cycles to work in Amsterdam. A note pinned to his body threatens politicians critical of Islam including Somali-born lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who wrote the script for the film.  Continued...

 
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