A Dutch theater came under fire on Friday for organizing an arts festival on terrorism on the third anniversary of the Sept. 11 plane attacks in the United States.
Stadsschouwburg theatre launched its “great gala of terrorism” under the slogan “See, Fly, Die” -- a play on the “See, Fly, Buy” slogan for duty-free shopping at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport. The “Y” depicted a diving plane.
Amsterdam city authorities condemned it as “crude, insensitive and in bad taste.”
The theatre said it aimed to provoke a serious discussion on terrorism, adding this was especially important after the Russian school hostage crisis last week and the bombing of Australia’s embassy in Indonesia on Thursday.
To advertise Saturday’s festival, which will offer films and plays on the topic, it printed thousands of yellow plastic bags designed to look like Schiphol shopping bags and fliers resembling boarding passes.
“We find something like this extremely tasteless and rather surprising in this day and age when terrorism is such a serious issue in the world,” said a Schiphol airport spokeswoman.
