Truemors
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, formerly Dutch politician and a Somali immigrant, was offered police protection in Denmark, as long as she lives there.
However she turned down the offer stating that she prefers to be in the US, where she holds a position at the Enterprise Institute.
Recently she has received editorial support from the neocon heavyweights like David Frum and opinion pieces in the Wall Street journal, LA Times and WaPo, all chastising the Dutch Gov't for canceling her police protection while she is paid by the Enterprise institute, a rightwing thinktank associated with the ruling class.
A story in the german Spiegel magazine online sums up the background:
PAYING FOR THE BODYGUARDS
Denmark Offers Hirsi Ali a Safe Haven
Now that the Netherlands has pulled financial
support for Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali's protection in the United
States, the Danish government has offered to pick up the tab for her
bodyguards -- as long as she lives in Denmark.
AP
The Danish government has offered Ayaan Hirsi Ali a safe haven.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the controversial author and former Dutch politician
who exiled herself to America in 2006, has been invited to live under
government protection in Denmark now that Amsterdam has quit paying for
her bodyguards. However she has politely declined, saying Tuesday that
her "work is in the United States."
The Somali-born author and prominent critic of Islam left the Netherlands last year after a
bureaucratic squabble (more...)
over her citizenship. She went to work as a fellow for the American
Enterprise Institute -- a neoconservative think tank based in
Washington, D.C. -- but remained under Dutch protection. Two weeks ago,
she returned to the Netherlands after the government quit paying (more...) for her bodyguards in America.
Hirsi Ali has been under Dutch police protection since late 2004,
when an Islamic extremist stabbed her friend Theo van Gogh to death in
an Amsterdam street for his short film against Islam, called
"Submission." Hirsi Ali, who was a member of the Dutch parliament at
the time, helped write the script. Her life was threatened in a note
left on van Gogh's body.
After her first year in the United States, though, the Dutch government
said it couldn't pay for Hirsi Ali's protection abroad "indefinitely."
Hirsi Ali returned to Europe on Oct. 1. Since then a number of Danish
towns, with support from the Danish government, have offered her refuge
under the auspices of an organization called the International Cities
of Refuge Network, which organizes havens for persecuted writers.
Danish Culture minister Brian Mikkelsen then made a formal invitation
on behalf of the whole country.
"I thank you with all of my heart," Hirsi Ali responded on Tuesday in an interview published in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, which first ran the so-called
Mohammad cartoons (more...)
in late 2005. "But my hope and my work is in the United States so right
now I am focusing on seeking (financial) means for my security there."
msm/ap
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,511830,00.html
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