(Dutch ) MP Told She Is 'Not Citizen'

The Telegraph (UK) ^ | 5-17-2006 | Joan Clements

[blam]

MP told she is 'not a citizen'

By Joan Clements in The Hague
(Filed: 17/05/2006)

The Dutch MP who lied to gain asylum fought back tears yesterday as she confirmed she was resigning her seat after being told her citizenship may be withdrawn.

Somalian-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali also said she was leaving for America. She said her job was now "impossible" after a "shocking" letter from Rita Verdonk, the immigration minister, saying Miss Hirsi Ali could no longer consider herself Dutch because of the lies she told the immigration authorities in 1992.

[blam]

Critic of Islam to quit Holland after lies are exposed

By David Rennie in Brussels
The Telegraph (UK)
(Filed: 16/05/2006)

Holland's most strident critic of Islam, the Somali-born MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is today expected to announce she is quitting politics and moving to America, amid allegations that she lied to gain asylum.

Miss Hirsi Ali faces penalties up to and including the potential loss of her Dutch citizenship, after a leading member of her own political party, the VVD, pledged a formal investigation of her actions.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: leaving Holland for the US

The Dutch immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, who is running for the parliamentary leadership of the VVD, said she would order a probe of her colleague's case, saying: "Laws and rules are valid for everyone".

Miss Hirsi Ali, 36, lives under constant police guard, after receiving death threats for her criticisms of the treatment of women in Islam (her own religion), a stance that won her many fans in Europe and America.

A film she scripted about abuse of women, Submission, led to the brutal murder of its director, Theo van Gogh, in 2004, by a Muslim extremist.

The MP has in fact long admitted lying to the Dutch authorities in 1992 about her name, her age, and the fact that she did not flee directly to Holland from Somalia.

She presented those omissions as necessary lies to obtain refugee status. Asylum seekers are expected to seek shelter in the first safe country they come to, and she would have been automatically deported if she had owned up to spending more than a decade outside Somalia, in Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Kenya and, briefly, Germany.

She obtained Dutch citizenship in 1997, and was elected to parliament in 2003.

However, the controversy has been stoked by a television documentary last week, which showed members of her own family striking at the very heart of her dramatic life story - her claim that she fled a forced marriage to a cousin she had never met.

Relatives, including her brother, said she had not been forced into marriage, and had nothing to fear. The documentary showed images of her family's comfortable middle-class home in Kenya.

Miss Hirsi Ali, who cut short a book tour in America to return to Holland and address the media storm, is expected to announce she is moving to Washington DC, to take up a post at the neo-conservative think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute, the newspaper De Volkskrant reported.

Since the allegations surfaced, Miss Hirsi Ali has said she is the victim of a "smear campaign".

[Knitting A Conundrum]

Because of her statements about the Islamic prophet Muhammad in a Trouw interview, a discrimination complaint was filed against Hirsi Ali on April 24, 2003. The Prosecutor's office decided not to prosecute her, because her critique did "not put forth any conclusions in respect to Muslims and their worth as a group is not denied."[10].

Hirsi Ali wrote the script for Submission [11], a short, low-budget film directed by Theo van Gogh. The film criticized the treatment of women in Islamic society. It showed women, one of whom was dressed in a semi-transparent burqa, with texts from the Qur'an projected on their bodies. The texts referred to the subordinate role of women. In addition to writing the script, Hirsi Ali also provided the voice-over. The release of the film sparked much controversy, as well as violent reaction, when radical Islamist Mohammed Bouyeri gunned down Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street on November 2, 2004. A letter pinned to Van Gogh's body with a knife was primarily a death threat to Hirsi Ali.

In 2004 the group "The Hague Connection" produced and distributed the rap song "Hirsi Ali Dis" on the internet. The lyrics of this song included yet more violent threats against Hirsi Ali's life. The rappers were prosecuted under Article 121 of the Dutch criminal code, because they hindered the execution of Hirsi Ali's tasks as politician. In 2005 the rappers were sentenced to community service and a suspended prison sentence [12].

After the incident, Hirsi Ali went into hiding in the Netherlands, and even spent some time in New York, a situation which lasted until January 18, 2005, when she returned to parliament. On February 18, 2005, she revealed the location of herself and her colleague Geert Wilders, who had also been in hiding. She demanded a normal, secured house, which she was granted one week later.

On November 16, 2005, Hirsi Ali reported being seriously threatened by the Imam Scheich Fawaz. This Imam, who worked in a mosque in The Hague, announced on the internet that Hirsi Ali would be "blown away by the wind of changing times" and that she could anticipate "the curse of Allah".

In January 2006, Hirsi Ali used her acceptance speech for the Reader's Digest "European of the Year" award to urge action to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and to say that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad must be taken at his word in wanting to organize a conference to investigate objective evidence of the Holocaust. "Before I came to Europe, I'd never heard of the Holocaust. That is the case with millions of people in the Middle East. Such a conference should be able to convince many people away from their denial of the genocide against the Jews." [13] She also said that "so-called Western values" of freedom and justice are universal; that Europe has done far better than most areas of the world at providing justice, because it has guaranteed the freedom of thought and debate that are required for critical self-examination; and that communities cannot reform themselves unless "scrupulous investigation of every former and current doctrine is possible."[14]

In March 2006 a letter she co-signed entitled MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism with eleven other individuals (most notably Salman Rushdie) was published in response to violent and deadly protests in the Islamic world surrounding the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

On April 27 a Dutch judge ruled that Hirsi Ali had to leave her house - a highly secured secret address in the Netherlands. Her neighbors had complained that living next to her was an unacceptable security risk for them.

[blinachka]

You obviously have no idea who this woman is an what a hero she is. What a truly ignorant comment you have made.

I second this! Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a very courageous and heroic woman!

[Old_Mil]

Somalian-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Who is this person?

[nmh]

Being caught as a LIAR is enough for me.

To presume the U.S. wants another ILLEGAL ALIEN is arrogance.

[Jemian]

Or how about by people, like me, who only know about her from what is in the blurb posted. All I knew about her is that she is from Somalia and lied to gain citizenship in the Netherlands. We have enough immigrants here. Instead of quickly condemning us, present the case as to why we would want her.

[madison10]

What makes her think we want her?

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Generally ditto; from what the BBC reports of her, she's a strong opponent of traditional islam.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

She was working with Theo Van Gogh on a movie about Islamic treatment of women.

After he was shot, she went into hiding, and had been threatened a lot for saying Islam is not perfect.

She has been very brave.

[AmishDude]

So, I guess the Islamonazis put enough pressure on the current government.

She's taking a job at the American Enterprise Institute, which the Telegraph calls a "neoconservative thinktank".

Critic of Islam to quit Holland after lies are exposed

[nmh]

#21

"Relatives, including her brother, said she had not been forced into marriage, and had nothing to fear. The documentary showed images of her family's comfortable middle-class home in Kenya."

Better inform her relatives of this imagined fear. It appears lying is a way of life for her.

[ThomasThomas]

Miss Hirsi Ali, 36, lives under constant police guard, after receiving death threats for her criticisms of the treatment of women in Islam (her own religion), a stance that won her many fans in Europe and America.

A film she scripted about abuse of women, Submission, led to the brutal murder of its director, Theo van Gogh, in 2004, by a Muslim extremist.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=VWQANHKVYE44LQFIQMGCFFOAVCBQUIV0?xml=/news/2006/05/16/wneth16.xml

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Can you explain what a troll is? And while you're at it, could you explain what a bump is, and common acronyms such as ROFL...., etc? as for your comment, many of the comments so far do seem to display a large degree of ignorance.

[edpc]

Somalian-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali also said she was leaving for America.

Well, if she does come here, she can still be a member of Parliament

Parliament Funkadelic

[blinachka]

What makes her think we want her?

The conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute wants her and is likely sponsoring her for the position they have offered her...so she will not be coming here illegally.

[AntiGuv]

Why do you keep slandering her as an "illegal" alien? She is not coming to the U.S. illegally. She's been offered a position by the American Enterprise Institute.

[JerseyHighlander]

Thanks for the laughs nmh.

Not the best troll ever, but topical and brief. oneliners might be your ticket out of the poorhouse.

[cyborg]

Dumpster diving for anything....wow the muslim extremists are really going to take over.

[Knitting A Conundrum]

You tell that to lots of women who escape from their families in Islamic circles, when their fathers and brothers tell the world there was nothing wrong.

And then later, don't be surprised when they are killed for insulting the family honor.

This happens all over the world right now. Families saying nothing is wrong while there is plenty wrong.

I will not continue to argue against meanspiritedness that jumps to conclusions and hard-hearted decisions based on only a little news story, without adequate information.

[Gay State Conservative]

Her basic message...that women in most muslim countries are treated like dogs...is undeniably true.

I'll bet that the Dutch gave her the boot because her presence in their country created the risk that she could cause an insurrection among their very large muslim population,at least some of whom are capable of gunning people down in the streets (that politician a few years ago and the film maker more recently,for example).