Dutch Rapper Ismo Probed Over Hate Speech
Dutch police are investigating a Muslim rapper who used hateful language against gays and Jews in one of his songs.
The rapper Ismo, whose real name is Ismael Houllich, included the text in his first single. The official video clip for the song titled “Eenmans” (or “One Man’s”) shows Ismo singing: “I hate those fucking Jews more than the Nazis,” “don’t shake hands with faggots” and “don’t believe in anything but the Koran.”
The clip, which was filmed in the southern border city of Breda, had received 125,000 viewers on YouTube before a 19-year-old homosexual resident of the city, Lars Hobma, filed a complaint with police against Ismo for alleged incitement to hatred, the news site of the Algemeen Dagblad daily reported Friday.
Hobma has received death threats on Facebook after filing the complaint, the daily reported.
In an interview for Omroep Brabant, a regional radio station, Ismo denied Hobma’s allegations.
“They are trying to twist my words against me,” he said. “I don’t hate all Jews. I hate only Zionist Jews that made Palestine smaller than my neighborhood.”
He added: “It all depends on how you interpret the song. By ‘faggots’ I didn’t mean homosexuals and by ‘Jews’ I didn’t mean all Jews. My fans realize that.”
Last month, the rightist, anti-Muslim politician Geert Wilders filed a police complaint against another Muslim Dutch rapper, Hozny, who released a video depicting Wilders’ abduction and murder.
In the video, Hozny sings about Wilders, who in his youth worked as a volunteer on a moshav, or co-operative farm, in Israel: “As a soldier in Israel he was happy among the Jews, then hate for Islam was born in his eyes.”
He also sang to Wilders: “How are things with your kippah? Are you being oppressed by the Jewish faith?”
Wilders, who never served as a soldier in Israel but describes himself as a friend of the Jewish state and people, has said his criticism of Islam were partially based on his extensive travels in Muslim countries.
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