By ARTHUR MAX The Associated Press
Saturday, May 13, 2006; 10:33 PM
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands -- Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch legislator who has championed the rights of Muslim women, is returning from a book tour to a firestorm for lying on her asylum application when she fled to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage.
Hirsi Ali, 36, said Saturday she was puzzled by the uproar since she publicly acknowledged the false refugee application when she stood for parliament in 2002.
"Have they all gone mad?" she said, accusing her rivals of a political vendetta.
"Yes, I did lie to get asylum in Holland. This is public knowledge since at least September 2002," she said in a telephone call from Hamburg, Germany.
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali gestures during an AP interview in The Hague, The Netherlands, Wednesday, April 26, 2006. Ali, the Somali-born Dutch legislator who has championed the rights of Muslim women, is returning from a book tour to a firestorm for lying on her asylum application when she fled to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage. (AP Photo/Fred Ernst) (Fred Ernst - AP)
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Political opponents want her stripped of her Dutch citizenship and deported. Others say she should be expelled from parliament.