Ghost of a flea

According to the Dutch agency ANP, sculptress Els Rijerse made the statue at the request of a former prostitute Mariska Majoor, who a decade ago founded a centre on prostitution in the Dutch capital. Majoor was quoted as saying by ANP that the statue would be a first of its kind and that it had received the blessing of the city authorities.

The statue represents a self-assured woman, her hands on her hips, looking sideways towards the sky, and standing on a doorstep, ANP said. The precise place where the statue will be laid and its title have not yet been announced, it said.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, perhaps nowhere has Europe's Islamic question been as fraught as in Holland. First, in May 2002, Pim Fortuyn, Holland's most controversial politician and a fierce opponent of Muslim immigration, was murdered. When the murderer turned out to be an animal-rights fanatic, not a jihadist, the Dutch let out a sigh of relief.

But then, more than two years later, another flamboyant anti-Muslim crusader, the filmmaker Theo van Gogh, was murdered as well — this time by a 26-year-old Dutch Moroccan named Mohammed Bouyeri. Bouyeri shot van Gogh repeatedly, cut his throat with a curved machete and pinned a note to the corpse calling for holy war and the murder of other prominent citizens. Walking away from the scene, he said, "Now you know what you people can expect in the future."