Detail of the head and upper torso portions of a burqa

Part of a series on Islamic culture
Architecture
Arabic · Azeri Indo-Islamic · Iwan · Malay Moorish · Moroccan · Mughal Ottoman · Persian · Somali Sudano-Sahelian · Tatar
Art
Calligraphy · Miniature · Rugs
Dress
Abaya · Agal · Boubou Burqa · Chador · Jellabiya Niqab · Salwar kameez · Songkok/Peci Taqiya · kufiya  · Thawb Jilbab · Hijab
Holidays
Ashura · Arba'een · al-Ghadeer Chaand Raat · al-Fitr · al-Adha Imamat Day · al-Kadhim New Year · Isra and Mi'raj al-Qadr · Mawlid · Ramadan Mugam · Mid-Sha'ban al-Taiyyab
Literature
Arabic · Azeri · Bengali Indonesian · Javanese · Kashmiri Kurdish · Malay · Persian · Punjabi · Sindhi Somali · South Asian · Turkish · Urdu
Martial arts
Silat · Kurash
Music
Dastgah · Ghazal · Madih nabawi Maqam · Mugam · Nasheed Qawwali
Theatre
Karagöz and Hacivat Ta'zieh · Wayang
Islam Portal v t e

A burqa (Arabic pronunciation: [ˈbʊrqʊʕ, ˈbʊrqɑʕ]^a; also transliterated burkha, burka or burqu' from Arabic: برقع‎ burquʻ or burqaʻ) is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions to cover their bodies in the public places

Etymology[link]

A speculative and unattested etymology connects b-r-q-ʿ with the Arabic root r-q-ʿ, which means "to patch up" or "to sew up". The objection to this etymology is that it assumes a pattern b-f-ʿ-l that adds b- to a root f-ʿ-l. The face-veil portion is usually a rectangular piece of semi-transparent cloth whose top side is sewn to corresponding portion of the head-scarf, so that the veil hangs down loose from the scarf, and it can be turned up if the woman wishes to reveal her face (otherwise the whole face would be covered). In other cases, the niqāb part can be a side-attached cloth that covers the face below the eyes' region.

History[link]

Many Muslims believe that the Islamic holy book, the Qur'an, and the collected traditions of the life of Muhammed, or hadith, require both men and women to dress and behave modestly in public. However, this requirement, called hijab, has been interpreted in many different ways by Islamic scholars (ulema) and Muslim communities (see Women and Islam).

The Quran has been translated as stating:

Another verse in the Quran is translated as:

A fatwa, written by Muhammed Salih Al-Munajjid on the Saudi Arabian website Islam QA, states:

The correct view as indicated by the evidence is that the woman's face is 'awrah which must be covered. It is the most tempting part of her body, because what people look at most is the face, so the face is the greatest 'awrah of a woman.^[1]

The fatwa also states when it is prohibited to wear the veil:

In the Sunnah there are many ahaadeeth, such as: the Prophet said: "The woman in ihraam is forbidden to veil her face (wear niqaab) or to wear the burqa'." This indicates that when women were not in ihraam, women used to cover their faces^[1]

Depictions of burqas in art[link]

An 1842 Lithography work by James Rattray showing a Persian (Qizilbash) woman in Afghanistan with a burqa behind her.

Venetian renaissance artist Gentile Bellini depicts them in the painting "St. Mark preaching in Alexandria" (1504–1507). In it, in his depiction of a crowd attired in Ottoman Turkish dress he also includes what appear to be a number of heavily hooded and veiled seated women.

Namus[link]

In the Muslim world, preventing women from being seen by men is closely linked to the concept of Namus.^[2][3]

Namus is an ethical category, a virtue, in Middle Eastern Muslim patriarchal character. It is a strongly gender-specific category of relations within a family described in terms of honor, attention, respect/respectability, and modesty. The term is often translated as "honor".^[2][3]

Burqas around the world[link]

Central and Southern Asia[link]

Afghanistan[link]

Two Afghan women wearing chadris.

The full Afghan chadri covers the wearer's entire face except for a small region about the eyes, which is covered by a concealing net or grille.^[4]

Before the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the chadri was infrequently worn in cities. While they were in power, the Taliban treatment of women required the wearing of a chadri in public. Officially, it is not required under the present Afghan regime, but local warlords still enforce it in southern Afghanistan. Chadri use in the remainder of Afghanistan is variable and is observed to be gradually declining in Kabul. Due to political instability in these areas, women who might not otherwise be inclined to wear the chadri must do so as a matter of personal safety.

India[link]

Among the Muslim population (in India, the burqa (Hindi: बुरक़ा, Urdu: بُرقع) is common in many areas^[5]- old Delhi, for example.^[6] In the locale of Nizamuddin Basti, the obligation of a woman to wear a burqa is dependent on her age:^[7] young, unmarried women or young, married women in their first years of marriage are required to wear the burqa.^[7] However, after this the husband usually decides if his wife should continue to wear a burqa.^[7]

Pakistan[link]

In Pakistan, the use of the burqa has greatly declined over time. The cities of Rawalpindi, Sargodha, Multan, Hyderabad, Peshawar and Quetta were overwhelmingly seen as cities of burqa-clad women at the time of Independence in 1947. However, burqa use, to some extent, persists in rural areas of the Northwest Frontier Province and some adjoining areas of Punjab and Balochistan. Smaller cities like Mianwali in Punjab which have a majority Pashtun population have burqa-observances as part of orthodox traditions. These traditions are independent of religion, and women from minorities such as Christian and Hindu women also observe them. However, the burqa observances remain localized and most women who observe burqa within these areas, do not do so when they travel out of the area.

Middle East[link]

Israel[link]

Some years ago, a group of Haredi (ultra-Orthodox) Jewish women in Israel began donning the Burqa as a symbol of piety. Following its adoption by Bruria Keren, an estimated 100 Jewish women have taken to wearing the veil.^[8] Keren claims to “follow these rules of modesty to save men from themselves. A man who sees a woman's body parts is sexually aroused, and this might cause him to commit sin. Even if he doesn't actually sin physically, his impure thoughts are sin in themselves”.^[9] However, apparently at the insistence of some of their husbands, a rabbinical authority quoted as saying “There is a real danger that by exaggerating, you are doing the opposite of what is intended [resulting in] severe transgressions in sexual matters”, issued an edict declaring burka-wearing a sexual fetish, that is as promiscuous as wearing too little.^[10]

According to The Jerusalem Post, a Member of the Knesset is intending to put forward a bill to "prohibit the wearing of a full-body and face covering for women. [The] bill would not differentiate between Muslims and Jews.^[11] "

Syria[link]

Woman in a niqab in Aleppo, Syria.

The burqa is not allowed to be worn in Syrian schools and universities by either students, teachers or staff.^[12]

Europe[link]

A woman in a niqab in England.

Face-covering clothing has become a political issue in Western Europe, and some intellectuals and political groups advocate prohibition, for various reasons.

United Kingdom[link]

This outfit is causing debate in the United Kingdom. A senior member of the previous government, Jack Straw, asked Muslim women from his constituency to remove any veils covering their faces during face-to-face meetings with him. He explained to the media that this was a request, not a demand, and that he made sure that a woman staffer remained in the room during the meeting. A media furor followed. Some Muslim groups said that they understood his concerns, but others rejected them as prejudicial.^[13] A poll in 2011 indicated that 66 percent of British people supported banning the burqa in all public places.^[14] However, a ban on burqas has been ruled out by the current Conservative-Liberal government and previous Labour government,^[15] but the UK Independence Party^[16] suggested it.

France[link]

Wearing the burqa has not been allowed in French public schools since 2004 when it was judged to be a religious symbol like the Christian cross. This ruling was the application of an established 1905 law that prohibits students and staff from wearing any clearly visible religious symbols. The law relates to the time where the secular French state took over control of most schools from the Catholic Church. It does not apply to private or religious schools. This was followed on 22 June 2009, when the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that burqas are "not welcome" in France, commenting that "In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity".^[17] The French National Assembly appointed 32 lawmakers from right- and left-wing parties to a six-month fact-finding mission to look at ways of restricting its use.^[18] On 26 January 2010, the commission reported that access to public services and public transport should be barred to those wearing the burqa. On Tuesday July 13, 2010 the Assembly overwhelmingly approved a bill banning burqas and niqabs.^[19]

On 14 September 2010, the French Senate overwhelmingly approved a ban on burqas in public, with the law becoming effective beginning on 11 April 2011. When the measure was sent in May to the parliament they said "Given the damage it produces on those rules which allow the life in community, ensure the dignity of the person and equality between sexes, this practice, even if it is voluntary, cannot be tolerated in any public place".^[20][21]

The ban is officially called, 'the bill to forbid concealing one's face in public.' It

Elsewhere in Europe[link]

On 29 April 2010, the lower house of parliament in Belgium passed a bill banning any clothing that would obscure the identity of the wearer in places like parks and in the street. The proposal was passed nem con and now goes to the Senate. BBC News estimates that "Only around 30 women wear this kind of veil in Belgium, out of a Muslim population of around half a million."^[23]

In Italy, by an anti-terrorism Law passed in 1975, it is forbidden to wear any dress that hides the face of a person. In May 2010, it was reported that a Tunisian woman was fined €500 for this offence.^[24]

On 27 January 2012, a law was accepted by the Dutch cabinet, banning any clothing that would hide the wearers identity. Fines for wearing a burqa in public could go up to 380 euros.^[25]

Oceania[link]

Australia[link]

In 2010, Australian Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi called for the burqa to be banned in his country, branding it "un-Australian". The ban did not go ahead but debate about the burqa continues.^[26][27]

In 2011, Carnita Matthews of Sydney was sentenced to six months jail for making a false statement accusing a police officer of attempting to forcibly lift her burqa.^[28] The officer pulled her over for a random breath test and then ticketed her for failing to properly display a P-plate. She then submitted a signed false complaint to a police station while wearing a burqa. Islamist activists protested in support of Matthews.^[29] Judge Clive Jeffreys overturned the conviction in June 2011, citing what he thought were differences between the signature on her license and that on the complaint. Forensic handwriting examiners, who Jeffreys did not consult, said that differences between signatures were to be expected.^[30] She then proceeded to seek legal costs.^[28] On July 4 2011, NSW became the first Australian state to pass laws allowing police to demand that burqas (and other head gear such as motorcycle helmets) be removed when asking for identification.

Health effects[link]

Enveloping outer garments, such as the burqa, are believed to cause or worsen medical conditions in some individuals.^[31]

Critics of enveloping outer garments list two main factors that go into these health risks: first, such garments are physically limiting because of their weight and because they limit a wearer's field of vision. Second, such garments lower the Vitamin D production in the skin because they block the UV rays in sunlight necessary for this production. However, many say that the risk of skin cancer from exposure to the sun outweighs the risk of cancers associated with deficiencies in Vitamin D. A sourced, more detailed exposition of this discussion follows.

In particular, they contribute to a predisposition for hypovitaminosis D, which can lead to rickets or osteoporosis and may increase the risk of seizures in infants born to affected mothers.^{[32][33][34][35][36]}

Close-up of part of the traditional Bandari burqa costume of southern Iran.

See also[link]

	Islam portal
	Fashion portal

References[link]

• ^a It's generally pronounced in the local variety of Arabic which vary. Examples: Egyptian Arabic: [ˈboɾʔoʕ], plural: [bæˈɾæːʔeʕ], in Literary Arabic by Egyptians: [ˈborqoʕ], plural: [bɑˈɾɑːqeʕ].

External links[link]

• Burqa ban: What it means for the West – TCN News
• France's burqa ban – background by Radio France Internationale in English
• The absence of evidence for banning burqas – The Guardian
• The Islamic veil across Europe – BBC
• Beautiful Burqas — slideshow by Life magazine
• "influence of Persian language in Arabic"

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Burqa

Michael Coren (born January 15, 1959) is an English-Canadian columnist, author, public speaker, radio host and television talk show host. He hosted the television talk show The Michael Coren Show on the Crossroads Television System from 1999 to 2011 when he moved to the Sun News Network to host an evening talk show, The Arena with Michael Coren.^[1] He has also been a long-time radio personality, particularly on CFRB radio.

He has written more than ten books, including biographies of G.K. Chesterton, H. G. Wells, Arthur Conan Doyle, and C. S. Lewis. His latest book, Why Catholics are Right, was published in 2011.

Life and career[link]

Coren was born in Essex, England. After obtaining a degree in politics from Nottingham University, he moved from the UK to Canada in 1987. For several years, he was a columnist for Frank and then The Globe and Mail, before he began syndicated columns for the Financial Post and Sun Media in 1995. Following his departure from Frank, he became a favourite target of that publication, culminating in a spoof ad contest to "deflower" Michael Coren (a nod to Frank's notorious "Deflower Caroline Mulroney" contest, and a satirical jab at Coren's conservative leanings.) Coren had also been a favorite target of Frank back in the days before he began writing for them. Coren took exception to being labelled a "literary prostitute" during a 1994 interview.^[2]

His career as a broadcaster began in the early 1990s when he co-hosted a political debate segment with Irshad Manji on TVOntario's Studio 2. In 1995, he began an evening talk show on CFRB. In 1999, Coren briefly moved to Talk 640 for a short stint as its morning man. He returned to CFRB, where he hosted a show from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m. weekday nights, and regularly filled in for other hosts until November 2005. Coren was dismissed by CFRB as a result of complaints arising from comments ridiculing the weight of an apparent guest. In fact, the guest was an actor and the segment was scripted. According to CFRB's Operations Manager, Steve Kowch, "Pat Holiday, our general manager and myself went through the tape of Monday night's show and were shocked....it was totally out of bounds." Coren argues that it was a satire comparing in his mind public attitude to third world starvation with North America's obsession with slimming and self-indulgence. ^[2]

Despite this acrimonious termination, Coren made regular talk show appearances on CFRB in July 2006, at the start of the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, as he happened to be in Israel at the time. After receiving 60% approval from CFRB listeners in an August 2006 poll, Coren returned to the CFRB airwaves in September 2006 with a Sunday evening show.^[3] As of the 22nd of April 2007, the show expanded from its usual 1 hour 7-8pm to 7-9 pm.^[4] Coren celebrated by giving away double the prizes usually given out. In the fall of 2007 he and former Liberal Party of Canada president Stephen LeDrew launched a daily hour-long afternoon show on CFRB called Two Bald Guys With Strong Opinions in which the two argue about the issues of the day.^[5] After the departure of LeDrew, Coren was joined by Tarek Fatah after several on air auditions by potential replacement co-hosts. Coren was again let go by CFRB along with 12 other staff of the Toronto radio station on 27 August 2009.^[6]

On television, Coren hosted the Michael Coren Show on the Crossroads Television System until June 2011 when he left to join the Sun News Network where he hosts The Arena with Michael Coren weeknights on beginning August 30, 2011. Coren also has a newspaper column published every Saturday in the Sun newspaper chain. He has been a columnist for the Western Standard, Catholic Insight and The Women's Post and has contributed to National Post, Reader's Digest and several other publications. A self-professed Tottenham Hotspur fan, he has appeared as a guest host on The Score's The Footy Show. Coren is also a public speaker, particularly at religious gatherings.

Political controversies[link]

In his earlier, satirical Aesthete column in Frank magazine Coren was by his own admission deliberately provocative. In response to a 1994 interview question about AIDS he responded:

"Look, people are dying all over. When it was blacks in Africa dying of AIDS, no one gave a toss. Nobody gave a toss. Suddenly, it's middleclass men in California and everyone goes crazy about it. It's a double standard. I'm trying to provoke people into rethinking comfortable points of view."^[2]

In September 2006, Coren published an article in the Toronto Sun, supporting the use of tactical nuclear strikes against Iran.^[7] This position was later retracted.^[8]

On the subject of AIDS Michael Coren wrote a column in 2006 titled "Why is AIDS so special?" in which he said "At its most simple, stop fornicating." "AIDS in the West is still overwhelmingly a threat to male homosexuals and intravenous drug users."^[9]

In an article which appeared in Sun Media in 2007, Coren said "As for Jesus not condemning homosexuality, nor did He condemn bestiality and necrophilia."^[10]

Religious Views[link]

His articles and speeches often include stories of his own personal spiritual journey. Coren's father was Jewish as was his maternal grandfather, while his maternal grandmother came from a family of Welsh coalminers and converted to Judaism. Coren's father and uncle were cab drivers. Coren has said that his father's family left Poland a few decades before the Holocaust.^[11] He has also said that his father's family emigrated from Poland in the 1890s.^[12] He said "People have called me an anti-Semite. I thought it quite rich since my father's family was massacred in the Holocaust".^[2] Michael Coren was profiled on Credo, on Vision TV, and said that his father told him he could not attend his son's wedding in a Catholic Church without becoming "physically sick."

He converted to Roman Catholicism in his early twenties while still living in England, but that didn't last long. He said that he "converted to an institution." He eventually converted to Evangelical Christianity in the 1990s, after a conversion experience as an adult, greatly influenced by Canadian televangelist Terry Winter.

In 1991 Michael Coren said in a column for a humour magazine: "The evangelical Christians may be intolerant, small-minded, and repellent, but at least they hold a consistent set of beliefs".^[2]

In a 1993 book review he said "Can anyone imagine a detective priest? Regrettably, it is easier to conjure up the image of a priest being questioned by secular detectives over abuse charges." Also in 1993, Michael Coren had a falling out with the Catholic Church over an unflattering profile he wrote of Archbishop Aloysius Ambrozic for Toronto Life magazine^{[citation needed]}. The Bishop, who made Coren a "Knight of the Holy Sepulchre" in a ceremony in October 1992, was quoted using words including "friggin" and "bitch", and said that Francisco Franco was a "conservative Roman Catholic and not a bad fellow." Coren defended himself, saying "He's an archbishop and he was vulgar...obviously what thousands of Roman Catholics expected me to do was lie. I still get hate mail about the article."

After this incident, Coren said that he didn't consider himself a Roman Catholic anymore. He said "My wife is Catholic and the children will be raised Catholic, but that's it. It's just not there for me."^{[citation needed]} Daniel Richler observed that Coren loves scandal, but hates having it come his way. In one of his columns for the satirical humour magazine Frank, Michael Coren depicted Mother Teresa getting drunk in a bar.^[2]

In early 2004, he embraced Catholicism again. He cites St. Thomas More, C. S. Lewis, Ronald Knox and his godfather Lord Longford as spiritual influences, and remains connected to the ecumenical scene in Canada and beyond.

Published books[link]

• Theatre Royal: 100 Years of Stratford East (1985) ISBN 0-7043-2474-1
• Gilbert: The Man Who Was G.K. Chesterton (1990) ISBN 1-55778-256-3
• The Invisible Man: The Life and Liberties of H.G. Wells (1993) ISBN 0-689-12119-9
• The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1993) ISBN 0-7475-1229-9
• The Man Who Created Narnia: The Story of C. S. Lewis (1994) ISBN 1-895555-78-7
• Setting It Right (1996) ISBN 0-7737-2940-2
• J.R.R.Tolkien: The Man who Created the Lord of the Rings (2001) ISBN 0-7522-6156-8
• As I See It (2009) ISBN 0-9812767-0-9
• Why Catholics Are Right (2011) ISBN 0-7710-2321-9

Awards[link]

Awards Michael Coren has won.^[13]

• 2005: The Ed Murrow Award for Broadcasting.
• 2006: The RTNDA Radio Broadcasting Award.
• 2007: The Communicator Award in Hollywood.
• 2008: the Omni TV Award.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Official website
• Michael Coren's blog
• [1] Coren's column in The Toronto Sun

Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, 2006
Born	(1969-11-13) November 13, 1969 (age 42) Mogadishu, Somalia
Nationality	Dutch
Alma mater	Leiden University (MSc) De Horst Institute (P)
Occupation	politician, writer
Known for	Submission anti-circumcision anti-female genital mutilation Infidel anti-sharia law
Influenced by	John Stuart Mill,[citation needed] Friedrich Hayek,[citation needed] Simone de Beauvoir,[citation needed] Karl Popper,[citation needed] Herman Philipse[citation needed]
Political party	2001-2002: Partij van de Arbeid (PvdA) (Labour Party) 2002-present Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD) (People's Party for Freedom and Democracy)
Religion	None (Atheist)
Spouse	Niall Ferguson

Ayaan Hirsi Magan Ali ( pronunciation (help·info); Somali: Ayaan Xirsi Cali; Arabic: أيان حرسي علي‎ / ALA-LC: Ayān Ḥirsī ‘Alī; 13 November 1969) is a Somali-Dutch feminist and atheist activist, writer and politician who is known for her views critical of Islam, practices of circumcision and female genital cutting. Her screenplay for Theo van Gogh's movie Submission led to death threats, resulting in the director's murder. The daughter of the Somali politician and opposition leader Hirsi Magan Isse, she is a founder of the women's rights organisation the AHA Foundation.^[1]

When she was eight, Hirsi Ali's family left Somalia for Saudi Arabia, then Ethiopia, and eventually settled in Kenya. She sought and obtained political asylum in the Netherlands in 1992, under circumstances that later became the centre of a political controversy. In 2003 she was elected a member of the House of Representatives (the lower house of the Dutch parliament), representing the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD). A political crisis surrounding the potential stripping of her Dutch citizenship led to her resignation from the parliament, and led indirectly to the fall of the second Balkenende cabinet^[2][3] in 2006.

In 2005, she was named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.^[4] She has also received several awards including a free speech award from the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten,^[5] the Swedish Liberal Party's Democracy Prize,^[6] and the Moral Courage Award for commitment to conflict resolution, ethics, and world citizenship.^[7] In 2006 she published a memoir. The English translation in 2007 is titled Infidel.^[8] As of 2012^[update] Hirsi Ali is a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, and lives in the United States.^[9][10]

Life and work[link]

Youth[link]

Ayaan Hirsi Ali was born into a Majerteen family^[11] in Mogadishu, Somalia.^[12] Her father, Hirsi Magan Isse, was a prominent member of the Somali Salvation Democratic Front and a leading figure in the Somalian Revolution. Shortly after she was born, her father was imprisoned due to his opposition to Somalia's Siad Barre government.^[13][14]

Hirsi Ali's father had studied abroad and was opposed to female genital cutting, but while he was imprisoned, Hirsi Ali's grandmother had the traditional procedure performed on five-year-old Hirsi Ali.^[13]

They settled in Nairobi, Kenya, where Hirsi Ali attended the English-language Muslim Girls' Secondary School. By the time she reached her teens, Saudi-funded religious education was becoming more influential among Muslims in other countries, and a charismatic religious teacher who had been trained under this aegis joined Hirsi Ali's school. She inspired the teenaged Ayaan, as well as some fellow students, to adopt the more rigorous Saudi Arabian interpretations of Islam, as opposed to the more relaxed versions then current in Somalia and Kenya. Hirsi Ali had been impressed by the Qur'an before she could even read, and had lived "by the Book, for the Book" throughout her childhood.^[15]

She sympathised with the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and wore a hijab together with her school uniform, which was unusual at the time but gradually became more common. She agreed with the fatwa against British writer Salman Rushdie that was declared in reaction to the publication of his controversial novel The Satanic Verses.^[16] After completing secondary school, she attended a secretarial course at Valley Secretarial College in Nairobi for one year.^[17] At this time, Hirsi Ali read English adventure stories such as the Nancy Drew series, containing modern heroine archetypes which overstepped the limits traditionally imposed by religion and society.^[18]

Early life in the Netherlands[link]

Hirsi Ali arrived in the Netherlands in 1992. There is some lack of clarity about the events leading up to her arrival, and she has admitted to making false statements in her application for asylum to enhance her chances of staying in the Netherlands.^[19] Hirsi Ali states that in 1992 her father arranged to marry her to a distant cousin. She says that she objected to this both on general grounds (she states that she dreaded being forced to submit to a stranger, someone with "the Holy Book on his side" who could force himself on her sexually),^[15] and on specific objections to this particular cousin, saying that he was a "bigot" and an "idiot".^[20]

It is not disputed that in 1992 she travelled from Kenya to visit her family in Düsseldorf and Bonn, Germany. It was planned that she would join her husband in Canada after obtaining a visa while in Germany. Members of her family have disputed the story of her forced marriage.^[21] According to Hirsi Ali, she spent her time in Germany frantically trying to devise a way to escape her unwanted marriage. Ultimately she decided that she would claim to want to visit a relative in the Netherlands, but once she had arrived, seek help from that relative and claim asylum.^[22]

Once in the Netherlands she requested political asylum, and obtained a residence permit. It is not known on what grounds she received political asylum, though she has admitted that she had lied by devising a false story about having to flee Mogadishu and spending time in refugee camps on the border between Somalia and Kenya. In reality, she did spend time in those camps, but in order to help relatives who were trapped there; she was already safely settled in Kenya at the time open warfare erupted in the Somali capital. She gave a false name and date of birth to the Dutch immigration authorities; something she says was necessary in order to escape retaliation by her clan.^[23] She is known in the West by her assumed name, Hirsi Ali, instead of her original name, Hirsi Magan. Hirsi Ali received a residence permit within three weeks of her arrival in the Netherlands.

After being granted asylum she held various short-term jobs, ranging from cleaning to sorting post.^[24] She then worked as a translator at a Rotterdam refugee centre which, according to a friend interviewed by The Observer newspaper, marked her deeply.^[25] She says that she had been an avid reader from childhood, and access to new books and ways of thought stretched her imagination and frightened her at the same time. She says that Sigmund Freud's work placed her in contact with an alternative moral system, one that was not based on religion.^[26] During this time she took courses in Dutch and a one-year propaedeutic course in social work at the De Horst Institute for Social Work in Driebergen. She states that she was impressed with how well Dutch society seemed to function and,^[26] in an effort to better understand how this system had developed, studied at Leiden University where she obtained a MSc degree in political science in 2000.

Between 1995 and 2001 she also worked as an independent Somali-Dutch interpreter and translator, frequently coming into contact with Somali women in asylum centres, hostels for battered women, and the Dutch immigration and naturalisation service (IND, Immigratie en Naturalisatiedienst). While working for the IND, she saw inside the workings of the Dutch immigration system and became critical of the way it handled asylum seekers.^[17] As a result of her education and experiences, Hirsi Ali speaks six languages: English, Somali, Arabic, Swahili, Amharic and Dutch.^[13]

Political career[link]

After her education at Leiden University, Hirsi Ali became a fellow at the Wiardi Beckman Foundation, a scientific institute linked to the centre-left Labour Party (PvdA), of which Leiden University Professor Ruud Koole was steward.

During her studies, she was becoming increasingly disenchanted with Islam. Her identification as a Muslim suffered a strong blow after September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001. After listening to videotapes of Osama bin Laden citing "words of justification" in the Qur'an for the attacks, she writes, "I picked up the Quran and the hadith and started looking through them, to check. I hated to do it, because I knew that I would find Bin Laden's quotations in there."^[27] She decided that, despite her upbringing, she had to regard the Qur'an as relative—it was a historical record and "just another book".^[28]

The final blow to her faith was her reading of The Atheist Manifesto (Atheistisch Manifest) of Leiden philosopher Herman Philipse. She renounced Islam and became an atheist in 2002. During this period, she began to formulate her critique of Islam and Islamic culture, published many news articles, and became a frequent speaker on television news programs and public debate forums. She wrote up her ideas in a book entitled De Zoontjesfabriek (The Son Factory). It was at this time that she first began to receive death threats.^[24]

In November 2002, after some disagreements with the PvdA about her security measures, she sought advice from Cisca Dresselhuys, the editor of the feminist magazine Opzij how to raise funds from the government for protection. Her party^{[clarification needed]} having recently lost the election, Hirsi Ali would soon be unable to receive government-funded protection. Dresselhuys introduced Hirsi Ali to Gerrit Zalm, the parliamentary leader of the centre-right People's Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD), and party member Neelie-Smit Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition. At their urging, Hirsi Ali agreed to switch to the VVD and stood for election to Parliament. Between November 2002 and January 2003, she lived abroad and was put on the payroll as an assistant of the VVD.

In 2003, aged 33, she became prominent in the parliamentary election campaign. Her message: the Dutch welfare state had overlooked abuse of Muslim women and girls, contributing to their isolation and oppression.^[29]

During her tenure in Parliament, Hirsi Ali made a number of controversial statements about Islam. In an interview in the Dutch newspaper Trouw she said that by Western standards, Muhammad would be considered a pedophile. A discrimination complaint was filed against her on April 24, 2003. The Prosecutor's office decided not to initiate a case, because her critique did "not put forth any conclusions in respect to Muslims and their worth as a group is not denied".^[30]

Going into hiding[link]

Hirsi Ali wrote the script and provided the voice-over for Submission,^[31] a film produced by Theo van Gogh, which criticised the treatment of women in Islamic society^[32]. Juxtaposed with passages from the Qur'an were scenes of actresses portraying Muslim women suffering abuse. The film also features an actress dressed in a semi-transparent burqa who has texts from the Qur'an written on her skin. The texts are among those often interpreted as justifying the subjugation of women. The film's release sparked much furore, and Mohammed Bouyeri, a member of the Hofstad Group, murdered 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.^[33][34] After this murder the Dutch secret service raised the level of security that they provided to her.^[35] In an interview to journalist David Cohen, Hirsi Ali has said that although she deeply regrets the murder of van Gogh, she is proud of the film and does not regret having made it. "To feel otherwise would be to deny everything I stand for."^[36] At his televised funeral, Van Gogh's mother not only echoed this sentiment, she urged Hirsi Ali to continue the work that she and Van Gogh had done together.^[37]

Earlier that year the group The Hague Connection produced a rap song, "Hirsi Ali Dis", and distributed it on the Internet. The lyrics included violent threats against her life. The rappers were prosecuted under Article 121 of the Dutch criminal code because they hindered the execution of her tasks as a politician. In 2005 they were sentenced to community service and a suspended prison sentence.^[38]

After the murder of van Gogh, Hirsi Ali went into hiding. Government security services moved her around to many locations in the Netherlands, and eventually moved her to the United States for several months. On January 18, 2005, 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.

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 organise 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."^[39] 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."^[40]

In March 2006 she co-signed a letter entitled "MANIFESTO: Together facing the new totalitarianism".^[41] Among the eleven other signatories was British writer Salman Rushdie, the fatwa against whom Hirsi Ali had supported as a teen. The letter was published in response to protests in the Islamic world surrounding the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy.

On April 27 a Dutch judge ruled that Hirsi Ali had to abandon her highly secure house at a secret address in the Netherlands: her neighbors had complained that living next to her was an unacceptable security risk to them, although the police had testified in court that it was one of the safest places in the country due to the large number of personnel they had assigned there.^[42] In early 2007 she stated that the Dutch state had spent about 3.5 million euros providing armed guards for her, and the threats made her live "in fear and looking over my shoulder", but she was willing to endure this for the sake of speaking her mind.^[43]

A private trust, the Foundation for Freedom of Expression, was established to help fund protection of Ayaan Hirsi Ali and other Muslim dissidents.^[44]

Citizenship controversy[link]

Wikinews has related news: Ayaan Hirsi Ali leaves Dutch Parliament

In May 2006 the television programme Zembla reported that Hirsi Ali had given false information about her real name,^[45] her age and the country she arrived from when originally applying for asylum. She had claimed to be fleeing the war in Somalia. However, she had been legally resident in Kenya for many years. Hirsi Ali admitted that she had lied about her full name, her date of birth and the manner in which she had come to the Netherlands, but said that she had fabricated this story while fleeing a forced marriage. Several sources, including her first book The Son Factory, which had been published in 2002, stated her real name and date of birth, and she had also publicly stated these in a September 2002 interview published in the political magazine HP/De Tijd.^[46][47][48] and in an interview in the VARA gids (2002).^[49] Accordingly, these details were considered by many to be public knowledge. Furthermore, Hirsi Ali has asserted that she made full disclosure of the matter to VVD officials when she was invited to run for parliament in 2002.^[50]

Media speculation arose that she could lose her Dutch citizenship because of this identity fraud, rendering her ineligible for parliament. At first, Minister Rita Verdonk^[51] said she would not look into the matter, but after Member of Parliament Hilbrand Nawijn officially asked her for her position, she declared that she would investigate Hirsi Ali's naturalisation process. This investigation took three days; the findings were that Hirsi Ali had not legitimately received Dutch citizenship, because she had lied about her name and date of birth. Rita Verdonk moved to annul Hirsi Ali's citizenship, a move that was later overridden on the urging of Parliament.^[52]

On May 15, 2006, after the broadcast of the Zembla documentary, news stories appeared saying that Hirsi Ali was likely to move to the United States in September, and was expected to write a book entitled Shortcut to Enlightenment and work for a conservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.^[53]

On May 16 Hirsi Ali resigned from Parliament after admitting that she had lied on her asylum application. On that day, she gave a press conference,^[54] in which she restated that, although she felt it was wrong to be granted asylum under false pretences, the facts had been publicly known since 2002 when they had been reported in the media and in one of her publications. In the press conference, she also restated that she had spoken the truth about the reason for seeking asylum, which had been the threat of a forced marriage, despite a claim to the contrary on the Zembla programme by some of her relatives. Her stated reason for resigning immediately was not the continuous threats, making her job as a parliamentarian "difficult" but "not impossible", but the news that the Minister would strip her of her Dutch citizenship.

After a long and emotional debate in the Dutch Parliament, all major parties supported a motion, requesting the Minister to explore the possibility of special circumstances in Hirsi Ali's case. Although Verdonk remained convinced that the applicable law did not leave her any room to consider such circumstances, she decided to accept the motion. During the debate, she astonished MPs by claiming that Hirsi Ali still had Dutch citizenship during the period of reexamination. Apparently the "decision" she had made public had been merely a report of the current position of the Dutch government. Hirsi Ali at that point had six weeks to react to the report before any final decision about her citizenship was taken. Verdonk was heavily criticised for not acting more prudently in a case that had so many political implications.^[55]

Besides a Dutch passport, Hirsi Ali retained a Dutch residency permit on the grounds that she was a political refugee. According to the Minister, this permit could not be taken away from her since it had been granted more than 12 years before, in 1992.

In a reaction to the announced move, former VVD leader Hans Wiegel stated that her departure "would not be a loss to the VVD and not be a loss to the House of Representatives".^[56] He said that Hirsi Ali was a brave woman, but that her opinions were polarizing. Former parliamentary leader of the VVD, Jozias van Aartsen, was more positive about Hirsi Ali, saying that it is "painful for Dutch society and politics that she is leaving the House of Representatives".^[57] Another VVD MP, Bibi de Vries, claimed that if something were to happen to Hirsi Ali, some people in her party would have "blood on their hands."

Ali reveals in her second biography, Nomad that in early 2006, Verdonk had approached Ali personally and asked for her public support in Verdonk's campaign to run for party leader. Ali claims she actually personally supported Verdonk's opponent, Mark Rutte, as the better choice for the position. She admits that Verdonk's request made her uncomfortable, and when she was honest with Verdonk about her political feelings, Verdonk then became vindictive and took up a campaign against Ali once the "Zembla" program had been aired. (see pp. 100–103) Hirsi Ali, Ayaan (2010). Nomad. Free Press. p. 277. ISBN 978-1-4391-5731-2.  Nomad (book) </ref>

United States Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick stated in May 2006 that "we recognise that she is a very courageous and impressive woman and she is welcome in the US."^[58]

On May 23, 2006, Ayaan Hirsi made available to The New York Times some letters she believed would provide insight into her 1992 asylum application.^[59][60] In one letter her sister Haweya warned her that the entire extended family was searching for her (after she had fled to the Netherlands), and in another letter her father denounced her.

Christopher DeMuth, President of the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), confirmed that this controversy would not affect the appointment. He stated that he was still looking forward to "welcoming her to AEI, and to America."

Rita Verdonk

On June 27, 2006, the Dutch government announced that Hirsi Ali would keep her Dutch citizenship.^[61] On the same day a letter was disclosed in which Hirsi Ali expressed regret that she had misinformed Minister Verdonk. Hirsi Ali was allowed to retain her name because the Dutch government believes that Somalis are allowed to carry the name of their grandfather according to Somali family law, and her grandfather had used the last name Ali until his thirties and only then switched to Magan. The fact that this grandfather was born in 1845 complicated the investigation (her grandfather was a powerful warlord, and Hirsi Ali's father Hirsi Magan Isse was the youngest of his children, born when he was close to 70).^[62] Also, the issue of the false date of birth was not that important, according to the Minister.

Later the same day Hirsi Ali, through her lawyer and in television interviews, made a statement declaring that she had signed the letter that was drafted by the Justice Department under duress.^[63] She felt she was pressured into signing the statement in exchange for the passport, but that she had agreed to do it, swallowing her pride, in order not to complicate her pending visa application for the U.S. As of 2006^[update] she still carried her Dutch passport. A close friend of Hirsi Ali, Leon de Winter, presented in his weblog a detailed account of the events which took place on June 27 leading to Hirsi Ali signing the statement confirming,^[64] in his view, the involuntary nature of her action.

In a special parliamentary session on June 28 questions were raised concerning the alleged coercion of the Hirsi Ali statement by minister Verdonk, the dismissal by the minister of the false date of birth as a relevant issue, and whether Somali law prevails over Dutch law. The ensuing political upheaval on June 29 ultimately led to the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet.^[65]

American Enterprise Institute[link]

Following the citizenship controversy Hirsi Ali took up a position at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington D.C.,^[66] requiring her security to be upgraded once again.^[67]

Her autobiography, Infidel, was published in September 2006. In a review posted on the summer reading list for the Middle East Strategy at the Harvard University website, American Enterprise Institute fellow Joshua Muravchik described the book as "simply a great work of literature," and compared her to novelist Joseph Conrad.^[68] In 2007 she told David Cohen she was working on another book, Shortcut to Enlightenment, a philosophical fantasy about a visit by Muhammad to the New York Public Library in which he is confronted by various Enlightenment philosophers such John Stuart Mill, Frederick Hayek and Karl Popper (Hirsi Ali's "favourite liberal thinkers"), compares them to the state of Islam today, and then comes to a number of important conclusions.^[43][69]

On September 25, 2007, she received her United States Permanent Resident Card (green card).^[70] Since October 2007 she has continued her work for AEI from a secret address in the Netherlands. Her move back to the Netherlands was a result of the ruling of the Dutch minister of Justice Hirsch Ballin that, as of October 1, 2007, the Dutch government would no longer pay for her security while she was abroad. In 2007 she declined with thanks an offer to live in Denmark, and said that she intended to return to the United States.^[71]

2006–2007[link]

According to journalist Jason Burke, Hirsi Ali had to move out of her house in The Hague in early 2006 after a court found that she was "endangering her neighbours" given the constant death threats and increasing criticism of her "trenchant statements."^[72]

On April 17, 2007, a lecture held by Hirsi Ali at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown required tight security, due to a protest by the local Muslim community. One of the protesters, Pittsburgh imam Fouad El Bayly, said that Hirsi Ali deserved the death sentence and she should be tried and judged in a Muslim country.^[73]

Hirsi Ali attended the 2007 Sydney Writers' Festival, giving an interview on June 2 and the closing address the following day, an extract of which appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald of June 4. Hirsi Ali described her intellectual and religious journey as one in which she had "lost respect not for Muslims but for what they fear." Saying she was accused of hating Muslims and vilifying the Qur'an and Muhammad, she clarified that she did not hate Muslims, but rather the submission of free will.^[74]

In September it was announced that she would take part in the New Yorker Festival in an event with Martin Amis. The event had originally paired Norman Mailer and Amis, but Mailer could not attend. However, ultimately Hirsi Ali also could not attend, so she was replaced by Ian Buruma.^[75]

Social and political views[link]

Hirsi Ali is a member of the VVD, a Dutch political party that combines conservative views on the economy, foreign policy, crime and immigration with a liberal stance on drugs, abortion and homosexuality. She states that she is a great admirer of one of the party's ideological leaders, Frits Bolkestein, a former Euro-commissioner. Ali received substantial criticism as a result of her defection from the Dutch Labour Party (PvdA) to the VVD. By way of response she asserted that she would show greater loyalty to the VVD.^{[citation needed]}

She states that her personal views are for the most part inspired by her change from Islam to atheism. Hirsi Ali is very critical of Islam, especially of its prophet Muhammad and the position of women.

Islam[link]

Hirsi Ali is very critical of the position of women in Islamic societies and the punishments demanded by Islamic scholars for homosexuality and adultery. She considered herself a Muslim until 28 May 2002, when she became an atheist.^[76] In an interview with the Swiss magazine Das Magazin in September 2006, she said she lost her faith while sitting in an Italian restaurant in May 2002, drinking a glass of wine: "...I asked myself: Why should I burn in hell just because I'm drinking this? But what prompted me even more was the fact that the killers of 9/11 all believed in the same God I believed in." Despite that, in the television programme Rondom Tien of 12 September 2002 she called it "my religion". She has described Islam as a "backward religion", incompatible with democracy. In one segment on the Dutch current affairs program Nova, she challenged pupils of an Islamic primary school to choose between the Qur'an and the Dutch constitution.^{[citation needed]}

In an interview in the London Evening Standard,^[16] Hirsi Ali characterizes Islam as "the new fascism": "Just like Nazism started with Hitler's vision, the Islamic vision is a caliphate — a society ruled by Sharia law — in which women who have sex before marriage are stoned to death, homosexuals are beaten, and apostates like me are killed. Sharia law is as inimical to liberal democracy as Nazism." In this interview, she also made it clear that in her opinion it is not "a fringe group of radical Muslims who've hijacked Islam and that the majority of Muslims are moderate. [...] Violence is inherent in Islam — it's a destructive, nihilistic cult of death. It legitimates murder."

At the Sydney Writers' Festival in June 2007, she balanced her arguments, saying "I am a Muslim" because she understood why Muslims were silent when the Qur'an was "invoked to behead captured aid workers, journalists and other Western wanderers," as silence is "better than an argument with the author of the Holy Book who has given the command to behead infidels." Hirsi Ali stated that she was also "not a Muslim" as she had lost the fear of the Qur'an and of Hell and lost respect for "its author" and messenger; and that she felt a "common humanity" with those she once "shunned", such as Jews, Christians, atheists, gays, and sinners "of all stripes and colours."^[28]

In The Reason Magazine, Ayaan Hirsi Ali stated that not just 'radical Islam' but 'Islam' must be defeated. She stated: "Islam, period. Once it’s defeated, it can mutate into something peaceful. It’s very difficult to even talk about peace now. They’re not interested in peace."^[77]

Muhammad[link]

Hirsi Ali criticises the central Islamic prophet on the grounds of both his morality and personality. In January 2003 she told the Dutch paper Trouw, "Muhammad is, seen by our Western standards, a pervert", as he married, at the age of 52, Aisha, who was six years old and nine at the time the marriage was consummated. These and other statements led to a lawsuit by a number of Muslims in 2005. The civil court in The Hague acquitted Hirsi Ali of any charges, but mentioned that she "could have made a better choice of words".^[78]

She also has stated her opinions about his personality. When Trouw asked her about him,^[79] she answered, "Measured by our western standards, Muhammad is a pervert. He is against freedom of expression. If you don't do as he says, you will be punished. It makes me think of all those megalomaniacs in the Middle East: Bin Laden, Khomeini, Saddam. Do you think it strange that there is a Saddam Hussein? Muhammad is his example. Muhammad is an example for all Muslim men. Do you think it strange that so many Muslim men are violent?" In a 2003 interview with the Danish magazine Sappho, she explains parallels she sees between the personality of Yasser Arafat and that of Muhammad.^[80]

Genital cutting[link]

Hirsi Ali opposes not just the genital cutting of girls, but also the practice of circumcision of boys as practiced by Jews and Muslims, as well as the routine infant circumcision practiced in the United States.^[81] In her autobiography, Infidel, she writes: "Excision doesn't remove your desire or ability to enjoy sexual pleasure. The excision of women is cruel on many levels. It is physically cruel and painful; it sets girls up for a lifetime of suffering. And it is not even effective in its intent to remove their desire."^[82]

A quotation from her on the subject: "girls dying in child birth because they are too young [...] The rise of radical Islam is an important part of this. I feel I have the moral obligation to discuss the source. I think if I think you are enriching the debate if you question it, you are not the enemy of Islam. We can look elsewhere using reason to discover answer to these problems, and we do not have to abolish religion. But we must do it by finding a balance."^[83]

When in Dutch parliament she proposed obligatory annual medical checks for all uncircumcised girls originating from a country where female mutilation is practiced. If a girl turned out to have been circumcised, the physician would report this to the police, with protection of the child prevailing over privacy.^[84]

On debate[link]

On August 31, 2006, while addressing the Dutch press on the occasion of her departure for the United States to work for the think tank the American Enterprise Institute, Hirsi Ali said: "...with like-minded people one cannot discuss. With like-minded people one can only participate in a church service, and, as is widely known, I do not like church services."^[85]

Freedom of speech[link]

In a 2006 lecture in Berlin,^[86] she defended the right to offend, following the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. She condemned the journalists of those papers and TV channels that did not show their readers the cartoons as being "mediocre of mind" and of trying to hide behind those "noble-sounding terms such as 'responsibility' and 'sensitivity'". She also praised publishers all over Europe for showing the cartoons and not being afraid of what she called the "hard-line Islamist movement", and stated "I do not seek to offend religious sentiment, but I will not submit to tyranny. Demanding that people should refrain from drawing him is not a request for respect but a demand for submission."

Political opponents[link]

Hirsi Ali supported the move by the Dutch courts to abrogate the party subsidy to a conservative Protestant Christian political party, the Political Reformed Party (SGP), which did not grant full membership rights to women and still withholds passive voting rights from female members. She stated that "any political party discriminating against women or homosexuals should be deprived of funding."^[87]

Hirsi Ali has also stated that she wants the Belgian authorities to ban the (non-Muslim) Flemish Vlaams Belang party, claiming that "it hardly differs from the Hofstad Group. Though the VB members have not committed any violent crimes yet, they are just postponing them and waiting until they have an absolute majority. On many issues they have exactly the same opinions as the Muslim extremists: on the position of women, on the suppression of gays, on abortion. This way of thinking will lead straight to genocide."^[88]

Vlaams Belang leaders and press statements reacted to her allegations by denying the party rejects in any way the rights of women or in any way promotes genocidal policies, instead pointing out Vlaams Belang's support for Shoah and Armenian genocide commemorations. Vlaams Belang party leader Frank Vanhecke responded to Hirsi Ali's allegations by writing an open letter to her, stating that she is "closer to the Vlaams Belang with her viewpoints than to the Flemish Liberals." He also rejected the likeness with the Hofstad Group, saying that his party "has never and nowhere called for violence." The Vlaams Belang reacted to Hirsi Ali's retirement from Dutch politics by stating that the party has "respect for the way she has conducted and promoted the debate in the Netherlands with respect to Islam, female oppression and failed integration."^[89]

Opposition to denominational or faith schools[link]

In the Netherlands about half of all education has historically been provided by sponsored religious schools, most of them Catholic or Protestant. Ayaan Hirsi Ali said in November 2003 that no religious school should receive government financing,^{[citation needed]} which brought her into conflict with Hans Wiegel, a prominent former VVD leader.

She went further in an interview with the London newspaper the Evening Standard in 2007,^[16] saying "Close the Islamic faith schools today. [...] Britain is sleepwalking into a society that could be ruled by Sharia law within decades unless Islamic schools are shut down and young Muslims are instead made to integrate and accept Western liberal values. [...] We have to show the next generation of Muslims, the children, that they have a choice, and to do that — to have any hope whatsoever — we have to close down the Islamic faith schools." However, she said, ‘I haven’t seen anybody coming out of a Catholic or Jewish school advocating violence against women or homosexuals, or wanting to murder innocent people in the name of their religion.’^[16]

Development aid[link]

The Netherlands has always been one of the most prominent countries that support aiding developing countries. As the spokesperson of the VVD in the parliament on this matter, Hirsi Ali said that the current development aid policy did not work to increase prosperity, peace and stability in the developing countries: "The VVD believes that Dutch international aid has failed until now, as measured by [the Dutch aid effects on] poverty reduction, famine reduction, life expectancy and the promotion of peace."^[90]

Immigration[link]

Public statements[link]

In 2003 Hirsi Ali worked together with fellow VVD MP Geert Wilders for several months. They questioned the government about immigration policy. In reaction to the UN Development Programme Arab Human Development Report Hirsi Ali asked the following question of Minister of Foreign Affairs Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and the Minister without Portfolio for Development Cooperation Agnes van Ardenne. Together with parliamentarian Geert Wilders she asked the government to pay attention to the consequences for Dutch policy concerning the limitation of immigration from the Arab world to Europe, and in particular the Netherlands.^{[citation needed]}

Although she always publicly supported the policy of VVD minister Rita Verdonk regarding limited immigration, privately she was not supportive, as she explained in an interview for Opzij,^[91] given shortly after she had moved to the USA. In parliament, she supported the way Verdonk handled the Pasic case,^[92] although privately she felt that Pasic should have been allowed to stay. On the night before the debate, she phoned Verdonk to tell her that she herself had lied when she fled to the Netherlands, just as Pasic had. Verdonk responded that if she had been minister at that time, she would have had Hirsi Ali deported. Subsequently, when the matter came to a head in public with Verdonk it led to the challenges over Hirsi Ali's Dutch citizenship and ultimately to her leaving the parliament and the country (see above).