Expatica news

Hirsi Ali to leave Netherlands

15 May 2006

AMSTERDAM — Liberal party MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali is leaving the Dutch parliament in September and moving to the United States.

Insiders confirmed a report on the website of Dutch newspaper ‘De Volkskrant’ on Monday about the move. Hirsi Ali has been on a speaking tour in the US and is due to make an official announcement on Tuesday.

She is going to work for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a conservative Washington think tank. The institute was founded in 1943 and is seen as one of the most important advisors to the government of George Bush.

Somali-born Hirsi Ali has been an outspoken critic of aspects of Islam and she became a campaigner for freedom of speech after the murder of film director Theo van Gogh in November 2004.

Hirsi Ali and Van Gogh collaborated on the short film ‘Submission’ which featured women in see-through veils discussing ill-treatment of women in Muslim societies. Hirsi Ali’s life has been threatened several times and she is under armed guard.

She is currently embroiled in a controversy about lies she told the immigration service in 1992 to get asylum in the Netherlands. She became a naturalised Dutch citizen five years later.

[Copyright Expatica News + ANP 2006]

Subject: Dutch news + Ayaan Hirsi Ali