THE HAGUE, 20/11/04 - Labour (PvdA) parliamentary leader Wouter Bos has withdrawn his support for the motion that seeks abolition of the law making malign blasphemy an offence. This mean there is no longer a Lower House majority for the motion, which centre-left (D66) MP Loesewies van der Laan planned to submit next Tuesday.

Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner had proposed making more use of the forgotten criminal law article, which dates from 1934. PvdA MP Aleid Wolfsen initially considered this a good idea, but a large part of the House found Donner's plea inappropriate and proposed scrapping the article altogether. The PvdA then sided with this vision, but Bos has now withdrawn his support from the motion after all.

Bos thinks deleting the article at this time would give an undesirable signal to Muslims, who already feel driven into a corner by all the commotion since the murder of Theo van Gogh by an Islam fundamentalist on 2 November. On the other hand, champions of unlimited freedom to express opinions would feel restricted if the article remains intact, he argued.

Van der Laan hopes part of the "obviously divided PvdA" will still vote for her motion. However, the left-wing Greens (GroenLinks), who also initially supported the D66 proposal, are now also hesitating. At first, only the Christian democrats (CDA) and the two Christian mini-parties SGP and ChristenUnie wished to leave the article in place.

Prime Minister Balkenende said Friday he agreed with Bos that the motiton should be laid to rest for a while. Voting on it, regardless of the outcome, could lead to "polarisation", in his view. ?