Theo van Gogh, 47, the great-grand nephew of the 19th century painter Vincent van Gogh, was shot and stabbed to death while cycling past Amsterdam’s city council offices. Police arrested a 26-year-old man of dual Dutch-Moroccan nationality after a gunfight in a nearby park, which wounded a policeman and the alleged assailant.

The incident sparked immediate comparisons with the assassination two years ago of Pym Fortuyn, the right-wing politician, who campaigned against immigration. Van Gogh had just finished a film on the life of Fortuyn that was due to be broadcast shortly.

But it was his latest film Submission, which featured a Muslim woman forced into an abusive arranged marriage and who was raped by her uncle, that caused the most outrage in the Dutch Muslim community.

The 11-minute film, broadcast on national television in August, was narrated and written by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a refugee who fled Somalia 12 years ago to escape a forced marriage. Describing herself as a former Muslim, Ms Ali has since become a liberal member of the Dutch parliament and high-profile critic of Islam.

After the broadcast, van Gogh and Ms Hirsi Ali, 34, were repeatedly issued with death threats and reluctantly accepted police protection. In a recent radio interview, however, van Gogh was upbeat and dismissed the threats, saying the film was “the best protection I could have. It’s not something I worry about.”

But at 9am yesterday, he was shot as he cycled past the front door of the city council of Amsterdam. Witnesses said that he managed to get to the other side of the street, where he was again shot and stabbed by the murderer, who pinned a note to his body.

The suspect then ran into a park, where a gunfight broke out with police. Van Gogh’s body was left lying in the street under a white sheet as police sealed off the area.

Ms Hirsi Ali, who famously criticised Muhammad as “a pervert” for marrying a six-year-old girl, Aisha, when he was 53, and consummating the marriage when she was nine, was taken to a safe house by police.

The outrage sparked by the murder in 2002 of Fortuyn, a flamboyant homosexual who campaigned against Islamic intolerance, was a watershed in Dutch politics. All political parties were forced to take a tough stance on immigration, with the Government adopting some of the strictest immigration laws in Europe and forcing immigrants to learn more about Dutch culture, language and values.

There are currently one million Muslims in a Dutch population of 18 million.

Tensions are never far from the surface and flared again this year when a teacher was shot dead by a Muslim pupil in a school canteen.

Last night, Jan Peter Balkenende, the Prime Minister, called van Gogh “a champion of the freedom of speech” and appealed for calm.

“It is unacceptable if expressing your opinion would be the cause of this brutal murder,” he said. “There is a climate that sees people resorting to violence. That is worrying. On a day like this we are reminded of the murder of Fortuyn. We cannot resign ourselves to such a climate.”

The Dutch wing of the European Arab League, one of several organisations to criticise Submission, said it was shocked by the murder. Nabil Maruch, its spokesman, said: “It’s horrible. We don’t know who did it and why, but it’s absolutely shocking that someone can be shot dead in a park in Amsterdam. Shots and death threats are not the way to make people think differently.”

The Moroccan Municipal Assemby in Amsterdam called for calm, saying: “Escalation is in nobody’s best interest.”

Van Gogh sparked controversy when he addressed Islamic issues after the September 11 attacks. In a book called Allah Knows Better, he attacked Islamic militancy and accused imams of hating women.

Submission criticised the Koran for sanctioning domestic violence and depicted four abused women in see-through robes showing their breasts with Koran text painted on their bodies.

One verse of the Koran states: “And those (wives) you fear may be rebellious admonish, banish them to their couches, and beat them.”

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