Expatica news

Hirsi Ali wants to move back to the Netherlands

17 March 2008

AMSTERDAM – Ayaan Hirsi Ali (Liberal VVD) would like to live in the Netherlands again. She said this in Monday’s edition of De Pers. She wants to keep a permanent residence in the Netherlands but must be able to travel for her work.

Her comments come in response to an interview with Labour PvdA MP Jeroen Dijsselbloem published in De Pers on Saturday, in which he calls on Hirsi Ali to return to the Netherlands.

Hirsi Ali says it is a ‘fantastic’ proposal. "People often seem to forget how I left to the US in 2006. My neighbours had secured a court order to have me evicted. I had been moved around more than 20 times," she says in the newspaper.

"So a place would have to be found in the Netherlands where I could really stay."

Dijsselbloem said in his column on Saturday that Hirsi Ali should make the Netherlands her home base but continue her international activities. The Netherlands would then have to provide her security, the PvdA MP said.

Hirsi Ali, a former MP herself, says it would be a ‘complicated and costly operation’ for her to travel a great deal while based in the Netherlands.

"If Jeroen Dijsselbloem is serious, he should ask Justice Minister Hirsch Ballin if he is willing to investigate the possibilities."

[Copyright Expatica News 2008]