On 2 November 2004, at eight thirty in the morning, Muslimfundamentalist Mohammed Bouyeri murdered the filmmaker en columnist Theo van Gogh as he cycled down Linaeusstraat. It was a murder motivated by political en religious belief. Attached to the knife stuck in Van Gogh's body was a message politician and publicist Ayaan Hirsi Ali. She and Van Gogh had made a film about the oppression of women in Islam - Submission - wich was the apparent motive for the murder. Bouyeri saw Van Gogh as an enemy of Islam. For others, despite his foul and virulent language, Van Gogh was a champion of free speech. The side of the murder, outside the offices of Oost/Watergraafsmeer district authority, was flooded with letters, flowers and cactuses - Van Gogh's trademark. That same evening demonstrators gathered on Dam Square to make as much noise as they could. Tensions mounted. Some Dutch Moroccans felt they were being held responsible for Bouyeri's crime; some indigenous Dutvh felt threatened by the Muslims living among them. Mayor Job Cohen and councilor Ahmed Aboutaleb played a leading role in containing the tense situation in the city. Nevertheless, riots and arson followed in various neighbourhoods and elsewhere in the country. On the day of the murder, graffiti artist Donovan Spaanstra began painting this portait of Theo van Gogh on a panel in the window of the W 139 art centre on Warmoesstraat.