This afternoon the Netherlands national gay/lesbian organisation COC organised a demonstration at the Homo Monument in Amsterdam to protest against an Islamic call to kill homo's. (Everyone in the Netherlands, from homophobes to homos themselves, uses this word).

The protest was aimed at the Al-Tahweed mosque in Amsterdam, because of a text in a book they sell, urging Muslims to throw homo's off the roof of buldings. In fact the book, Minhaj al Muslim, has been widely available for decades, in several languages. Yesterday, premier Balkenende also condemned it.

Why the book was discovered by the media only yesterday, is a mystery. That happened to be the day the cabinet announced new hard-line immigration policies, and a ban on new Islamic schools.

But in any case there are clear double standards here. Every day Dutch-language forums and weblogs spread racist material, including explicit calls to kill all immigrants, or all members of specific ethnic groups. They are illegal, of course, but no-one is ever prosecuted. The COC has never protested or demonstrated against these, and the premier never condemned them.

So it's very hard to sympathise with people who only protest, when they themselves are targeted - especially when the whole thing smells of spin.