Dutch teacher goes into hiding after being accused of blasphemy

As terroristic attacks begin to ramp up again in Europe over “insults” to Islam’s prophet Mohammed, a teacher in Holland has now gone into hiding after receiving threats over a cartoon the teacher displayed on a classroom wall.

Police are looking online threats against the unnamed teacher at the Emmauscollege high school in Rotterdam, who was accused of blasphemy by some Muslim students over a cartoon in support of the controversial French magazine Charlie Hebdo.

A bulletin board in the teacher’s classroom featured numerous quotes from the Indian spiritual figure Jiddu Krishnamurti, according to NRC and De Telegraaf newspapers, and also displayed a prize-winning cartoon by Dutch artist Josep Bertrams after 12 people were murdered at the magazine’s Paris offices in 2015. The attack followed the magazine’s publication of cartoons depicting Mohammed in a less-than-reverent light.

The Dutch cartoon in the classroom showed a decapitated person in a Charlie Hebdo t-shirt sticking their tongue out of their open throat at the person who beheaded them, whose beard and clothes suggest he represents a Muslim.    

Some Muslim girls in the class reportedly demanded the cartoon to be taken down because it was blasphemous. A student posted a photo of the image on the internet, claiming it was “a cartoon of our prophet” that the teacher meant as a provocation.

“If this is not removed very quickly” someone wrote on Instagram, “then we will do this differently.”

At the time of the girls’ complaints, the teacher explained that the cartoon did not show the Prophet Mohammed but rather a terrorist. The cartoon in question did not depict Mohammed but rather a generic terrorist figure.

According to police, the teacher had also received online threats.