http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/jan/13/ahmed-aboutaleb-rotterdam-mayor-tells-islam/ By Jessica Chasmar - The Washington Times - Tuesday, January 13, 2015
The Muslim mayor of Rotterdam, Netherlands, didn’t hold back last week in telling Islamist extremists to “f– off” on live television.
Ahmed Aboutaleb appeared on live television just hours after two French Islamists gunned down 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, the Daily Mail reported.
“It is incomprehensible that you can turn against freedom,” he said on the Dutch program “Nieuwsuur (Newshour).” “But if you don’t like freedom, for heaven’s sake, pack your bags and leave.”
“If you do not like it here because some humorists you don’t like are making a newspaper, may I then say you can f– off,” Mr. Aboutaleb added. “Vanish from the Netherlands if you cannot find your place here.”
The mayor grew up the son of an imam in northern Morocco but moved to the Netherlands in 1976, the Daily Mail reported. Representing the Dutch Labour Party, Mr. Aboutaleb was appointed mayor of Rotterdam, the country’s second-largest city, in 2008.
London Mayor Boris Johnson lauded Mr. Aboutaleb as his “hero,” saying his comments were “straight to the point.”
“That is the voice of the Enlightenment, of Voltaire,” Mr. Johnson wrote for The Telegraph.
“If we are going to win the struggle for the minds of these young people, then that is the kind of voice we need to hear — and it needs above all to be a Muslim voice,” he said.
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