Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the outspoken critic of Islam, is still looking for safe harbor. After Holland and the US both declined to pay for her bodyguards to protect her from Islamists extremists, she has asked France for citizenship.
The odyssey has been a long one for Ayaan Hirsi Ali: persecuted in Somalia, abandoned by the Netherlands and underprotected in America.
Now, though, the former Dutch lawmaker is turning a new direction in her quest for a safe place to live. She has now asked France to grant her citizenship because, she says, she cannot be assured of her own safety in the Netherlands or the US.
"I would be very honored and grateful if I were to become a French citizen, and the question of my protection could be resolved once and for all," said Hirsi Ali, speaking in English in an interview on Sunday with France-2 television.
Hirsi Ali, a native of Somalia who fled to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage, has long been an outspoken critic of Islam (more...). She wrote the screenplay for "Submission," a film that equated Islamic culture with the abuse of women and depicted nearly naked women with passages of the Koran written on their bodies. The film's director, Theo van Gogh, was murdered in 2004 by a Muslim extremist on the streets of Amsterdam. A note attached to van Gogh's body threatened Hirsi Ali with a similar fate.
Since then she has lived under constant security surveillance, and in 2006 she left Europe for the United States. The Dutch government announced last October (more...) that it would no longer cover the cost of her around-the-clock protection. The American government refused to pick up the tab because she is a foreign national, obliging her to find independent funding.
"I live under protection now, but it's a protection in which I still have to move from place to place, and look for donors to pay for my protection," she said.
Hirsi Ali said that she chose France because she had received support from French intellectuals and sympathy from French political leaders.
French Philosopher Henri Levy has championed Hirsi Ali's bid for French citizenship. He has described her as a "brave woman" who "has already proved that she is French."
France's Human Rights Minister, Rama Yade, stopped short of guaranteeing citizenship for Hirsi Ali, but said on a France-2 news program that France would lobby for the creation of a European Union-wide fund to cover the security of citizens who live under religiously motivated threats like that against Hirsi Ali. The fund has the support of French President Nicolas Sarkozy, as well as France's Socialist Party and about 70 European Parliament members.
"We believe in France that Ayaan Hirsi Ali must be protected," Yade said on a France-2 news program.
Hirsi Ali, who is 37, won election to the Dutch national assembly as a conservative politician famed for her near-blanket criticism of Islam and Muslim culture. She was embraced by anti-Islamic activists in Europe, but drew the ire of left-wing politicians who felt that she encourages intolerance. Hirsi Ali resigned her seat in parliament and left the Netherlands after the government threatened to revoke her passport because she used a fake name to seek asylum in the country 14 years earlier.
понедельник, 11 февраля 2008 г.
manchester england,shot teenager dies in hospital
THE 16-year-old boy injured in a double shooting at a bookmakers shop has died.
Lewis Braithwaite was hit in the chest, shoulder and leg following what is being treated as a targeted attack at the end of last month.
Following a spell in intensive care when doctors feared the worst, the teenager's condition appeared to improve.
But police have today confirmed that he died yesterday Sunday afternoon.
Lewis's grandmother told the MEN: "It is all very sad" but refused to discuss the tragedy any further.
Today as police mounted a murder inquiry, community representatives reacted with shock and sadness to the news that yet another young person has lost their life to gun crime.
The shooting happened inside the William Hill betting shop on Mauldeth Road West in Withington on January 29.
An eighteen-year-old shot in the stomach and torso as part of the same attack remains in a stable condition in hospital.
Today Raymond Bell from community action group CARISMA said he was shocked to hear the teenager, who was known to the police, had lost his life and that he hoped the news did not spark a revenge attack.
He said more work needed to be done by those living within the communities affected by gun crime to find out what made otherwise normal teenagers transform themselves into gangsters willing to take someone else's life.
He said: "We need to do some research to find out what triggers otherwise normal young people to transform themselves in this way. It's not something you can do from afar with outside agencies, it needs to be done by people within the community.
Anti-establishment
Mums and dads need to take a look at their children. We need to find out why young people are becoming anti-establishment. We need to get them back into the community and persuade them not to destroy it and tear it up."
Jackie Fetherston from the Mothers Against Violence group, whose 19-year-old son Fabian Flowers died from a gunshot wound in February 2004, said: "It is heartbreaking. I heard the news while I was on my way to work this morning. It made me feel sick. My heart goes out to his family and his mum.He is just a baby."
She said the Government needed to introduce harsher sentences for those involved in gun crime.
"Young people think they are untouchable and invincible. We need to start working within the primary schools to get to them before they are excluded and get onto the downward spiral which leads to this," she added.
Police believe the gunman, who had his face covered, fired five shots inside the betting shop. After the shooting he ran away from the area with a second man.
The attack came four days after another shooting incident outside the Lucky Star takeaway on same parade of shops on Mauldeth Road West at about 8.50pm on January 25. Police believe the shootings are linked, but despite stepping up patrols in the area and mounting a re-appeal for witnesses a week after the two teenagers were injured, no-one has been arrested as part of the investigation.
A post mortem investigation to determine the exact cause of Lewis's death is expected to take place today
Lewis Braithwaite was hit in the chest, shoulder and leg following what is being treated as a targeted attack at the end of last month.
Following a spell in intensive care when doctors feared the worst, the teenager's condition appeared to improve.
But police have today confirmed that he died yesterday Sunday afternoon.
Lewis's grandmother told the MEN: "It is all very sad" but refused to discuss the tragedy any further.
Today as police mounted a murder inquiry, community representatives reacted with shock and sadness to the news that yet another young person has lost their life to gun crime.
The shooting happened inside the William Hill betting shop on Mauldeth Road West in Withington on January 29.
An eighteen-year-old shot in the stomach and torso as part of the same attack remains in a stable condition in hospital.
Today Raymond Bell from community action group CARISMA said he was shocked to hear the teenager, who was known to the police, had lost his life and that he hoped the news did not spark a revenge attack.
He said more work needed to be done by those living within the communities affected by gun crime to find out what made otherwise normal teenagers transform themselves into gangsters willing to take someone else's life.
He said: "We need to do some research to find out what triggers otherwise normal young people to transform themselves in this way. It's not something you can do from afar with outside agencies, it needs to be done by people within the community.
Anti-establishment
Mums and dads need to take a look at their children. We need to find out why young people are becoming anti-establishment. We need to get them back into the community and persuade them not to destroy it and tear it up."
Jackie Fetherston from the Mothers Against Violence group, whose 19-year-old son Fabian Flowers died from a gunshot wound in February 2004, said: "It is heartbreaking. I heard the news while I was on my way to work this morning. It made me feel sick. My heart goes out to his family and his mum.He is just a baby."
She said the Government needed to introduce harsher sentences for those involved in gun crime.
"Young people think they are untouchable and invincible. We need to start working within the primary schools to get to them before they are excluded and get onto the downward spiral which leads to this," she added.
Police believe the gunman, who had his face covered, fired five shots inside the betting shop. After the shooting he ran away from the area with a second man.
The attack came four days after another shooting incident outside the Lucky Star takeaway on same parade of shops on Mauldeth Road West at about 8.50pm on January 25. Police believe the shootings are linked, but despite stepping up patrols in the area and mounting a re-appeal for witnesses a week after the two teenagers were injured, no-one has been arrested as part of the investigation.
A post mortem investigation to determine the exact cause of Lewis's death is expected to take place today
Anonymous Protests at Scientology - Los Angeles, CA
2-10-08 LOS ANGELES - Members of the cyber terrorism group, Anonymous, protest a branch of Scientology in Los Angeles on Sunday the 10th of February.
Interesting to see that some of them are not so "anonymous".
Interesting to see that some of them are not so "anonymous".
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