Mohammed Khatib, a leading figure in the Islamist Samidoun group, has been announced as the main speaker at a seminar hosted by Radboud University Nijmegen (RU), scheduled for the end of October, reports the NieuwRechts website.
While the Islamist outfit presents itself as dedicated to Palestinian prisoners’ welfare, it is banned in Israel and Germany. Designation as a terror group in the United States and Canada came as recently as October 15th, when the slogan “death to Canada” was used at a rally in Vancouver arranged by the group.
In April this year, Belgian authorities attempted to expel Khatib and revoke his refugee status due to his role in celebrations of Hamas’s October 7th massacre, which his group called an “act of resistance.”
In the Netherlands parliament, a motion was passed putting Samidoun on the national terror list. Despite the efforts of the Reformed Political Party (Staatkundig Gereformeerde Partij, SGP), this has yet to translate into action. Amid this controversy, Khatib—his organisation’s coordinator for Europe—was invited to host the seminar on the topic of the situation in Palestine. Several RU academics welcomed the invitation, promoting the event on social media.
SGP members Chris Stoffer and Diederik van Dijk have questioned the Minister of Justice and Security and the Minister of Education, Culture and Science, asking whether it is acceptable that
lecturers at Dutch universities actively distribute invitations and state that they are pleased that a member of Samidoun, which is banned in Germany, is openly spreading (anti-Jewish) hatred at a Dutch university.
