Ayaan Hirsi Ali Is Hoping to Become a French Citizen

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

 

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.

 

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.

 

Former Dutch lawmaker Ayaan Hirsi Ali is hoping for French citizenship.

"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.

 

Source: AP, February 12, 2008