Posted on 08/13/2007 2:04:26 PM PDT by knighthawk
HYDERABAD, India — HYDERABAD, India — Indian police charged Monday, August 13, a Bangladeshi writer known for her frequent attacks on Islam with offending Muslims after a complaint from a leading Muslim party in this southern city.
"A case was booked against Taslima Nasreen that her anti-Islamic views and writings hurt Muslim sentiments," Hyderabad police official L.K. Shinde told Agence France-Presse (AFP).
Under the Indian penal code, promoting "disharmony or feelings of enmity, hatred or ill-will" between groups on the basis of religion is punishable by up to three years in jail.
Police said they filed the case against Nasreen, living in self-imposed exile, at the request of a leader from the regional Muslim Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen party, aligned with India's ruling Congress party in the state.
"Taslima is a controversial personality and her writings have always provoked the religious-minded in Hyderabad and elsewhere and hence we have registered a case for provocative literature," senior police officer N. Madhusudan Reddy has said.
The novelist came under attack at a press conference last week marking the release of a translation of her latest book Shodh (Getting Even).
Television footage showed Muslim state lawmakers and activists hitting Nasreen with flowers and threatening to lob chairs.
A visibly shaken Nasreen was shielded by organizers and whisked away by police.
Police said Majlis-e-Ittehadul-Muslimeen leader-cum-legislator Akbaruddin Owaisi was accused of "intimidation" after suggesting the writer could be killed if she returned to Hyderabad.
Owaisi, party leader in the Andhra Pradesh assembly, said his statement was distorted by a section of the media.
Muslims make up more than a third of Hyderabad's 6.5 million population.
Controversial
A former Muslim and now atheist, Nasreen has incurred the wrath of Muslims in Bangladesh and India for her anti-Islam writings.
In 1993, a series of newspaper columns critical of women treatment in Islam prompted accusations of blasphemy and death threats.
Her novel "Lajja" (Shame), which depicted the life of a Hindu family persecuted and tortured by Muslims in Bangladesh, led to the confiscation of her passport by the government.
In 1994, she called for a thorough revision of the Noble Qur'an, prompting accusations of blasphemy and demands for her execution.
The government filed a court case against Nasrin charging her with blasphemy, and an arrest warrant was issued.
The writer went into hiding before being granted bail two months later. She left the country the same year and now lives in the eastern Indian city of Kolkata.
In the same year, Nasrin received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament.
Her books have been translated into twenty different languages.
Ping
The leftist dream - anybody offends you, he goes to jail.
Of course, this rule could never apply to a leftist.
You can't polish a brass turd
Damn. Even India is infected with Political Correctness. It seems like all non - Muslim Societies have a Death Wish.
“It seems like all non - Muslim Societies have a Death Wish.”
Yep.
Unfortunately that is very true.
Shouldn’t you be supporting the raging islamist lunatics, or the “pro-democracy” socialist Congress party that brought the charges?
You’re always on the wrong side, so why choose the right side on this one? Broken clock, eh
“Shouldn’t you be supporting the raging islamist lunatics, “
Thats your job not mine.
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