Imam Fouad ElBayly, president of the Johnstown Islamic Center, demonstrates the extremist nature of Islam by threatening Ayaan Hirsi Ali with the death penalty — under Islamic law.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali — a brave critic of Islam to her supporters, a bigot to her critics — has found refuge in the intellectual bastion of leading U.S. conservatives.
The centre-right Dutch Government unexpectedly collapsed last night after growing tensions over its notoriously tough immigration minister, ‘Iron Rita’ Verdonk. Jan Peter Balkenende, the Prime Minister, announced that he would hand his resignation to Queen Beatrix today after he failed to heal rifts in his coalition over Ms Verdonk’s decision to strip Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born MP and world-renowned critic of Islam, of her passport. The announcement, which will almost certainly lead to early elections, came moments after three ministers from the tiny D-66 party quit the Cabinet, demanding the resignation of Ms Verdonk. They wanted to force her
AMSTERDAM — Ayaan Hirsi Ali has released a statement that totally exonerates Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk for suggesting her Dutch naturalisation was invalid. Justice ministry officials attached the statement to copies of a letter being sent to parliament to confirm Hirsi Ali is a Dutch citizen. Verdonk provoked a storm of protest both in the Netherlands and internationally in mid-May when she gave the Somali-born critic of Islam six weeks to explain why her Dutch passport should not be withdraw. Hirsi Ali’s self-confessed crime was that she had given a false name to get asylum in the Netherlands in 1992.
AMSTERDAM — Immigration and Integration Minister Rita Verdonk has informed parliament that Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali is to keep her Dutch passport. This follows an agreement reached by senior Cabinet ministers during a meeting in the Hague apartment of Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende late on Monday. Deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm (Finance), the first to leave the meeting, told journalists he had “good hope” Hirsi Ali’s case could be finalised this week. Zalm was leader of the Liberal Party (VVD) when he recruited the Somali critic of Islam to run for election for the party. She told him at
The Dutch authorities fear that “Submission 2,” Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s soon to be released new movie, might make the Netherlands a target of angry Muslims worldwide. The movie criticizes Muslims for their intolerance of gays. In a report published last Wednesday the country’s National Anti-Terrorism Coordinator (Nationaal Coördinator Terrorismebestrijding, NCTb) warns that one must seriously take into account the possibility of an international Muslim boycott of the Netherlands, similar to the boycott of Denmark by the Islamic world earlier this year over the Muhammad cartoons. The NCTb writes that “Submission 2” has already attracted attention in the Arab world and
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — Former Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali has stood at the white-hot center of the debate on Islam in Europe. She bluntly urged Muslim women to throw off their veils, and angered Muslims by linking Islam with terrorism. Yet she earned no praise from the anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim right, nor from the women she tried to defend. They found her abrasive and a troublemaker. While Muslim extremists called her a heretic and wanted her dead, the average Muslim woman wanted her to just go away. After her political career was derailed this week by an exposed lie on her
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands — A Somali-born former member of parliament who resigned this week after admitting she lied on her asylum application 14 years ago will stay in the Netherlands until her citizenship is reviewed, her spokeswoman said Friday. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was in her apartment in The Hague under orders from her lawyers not to speak to the media or appear in public, said the spokeswoman, Ingrid Pouw. She remains under constant police guard, as she has been for several years since receiving death threats for speaking out against Islamic radicalism. Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk said Hirsi Ali’s naturalization was
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) — Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk may have brought an abrupt end to the political dreams of two women this week: those of a Somali-born lawmaker — and her own. On Monday, Verdonk informed Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who gained prominence with her blunt criticism of fundamentalist Islam and for defending the rights of Muslim women, that her citizenship was invalid because she had lied on her asylum application in 1992. Verdonk, a criminologist and former deputy prison warden, claimed she was simply applying Dutch law. In the past, such refusals to make exceptions have pumped up her
PARIS, May 17 — The Dutch immigration minister’s decision to cancel the citizenship of a Somali-born Dutch legislator has set off a political storm in the Netherlands, with Parliament demanding that the move be revoked. At the center of the storm is Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 36, who gained fame — and received death threats — while campaigning against militant Islam and opposing the abuse she said Muslim women suffered even in Europe. The immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, said she acted Monday after a television program last week that focused on lies Ms. Hirsi Ali told when she sought political asylum