Ayaan Hirsi Ali Plans to Move to America

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

This is so wrong on so many levels. In the end, though, she'll be much better off in the US...

ISLAM CRITIC

Fed Up with Holland, Hirsi Ali Plans to Move to America

Hirsi Ali, the Dutch parliamentarian who became the target of radical Islamists for her role in writing the screenplay to murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh's "Submission," is planning to resign from her elected office and leave the Netherlands. Ali is considered one of Europe's most outspoken critics of Islam.

According to information obtained by SPIEGEL ONLINE, Hirsi Ali will make a public statement announcing her resignation on Tuesday. The move allegedly comes as a result of disillusionment caused by recent reports taking a critical look at her original entry into Holland in 1992. A television report aired last Thursday claimed that Hirsi Ali only received political asylum in the Netherlands because of false statements she made in her application.

According to a report in the Monday issue of the Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, Hirsi Ali has accepted a post at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative Washington-based think tank. Since late 2004, she has been forced to keep a low profile in Holland after Islamist extremists murdered filmmaker Theo van Gogh for making "Submission," which included images of naked women with Koran verses painted on their bodies. The script for the film came from Hirsi Ali -- and she was explicitly threatened in the note found stabbed into van Gogh's chest.

When Hirsi Ali applied for asylum, she claimed she was fleeing civil war-torn Somalia. But she had already long held refugee status in Kenya -- and she faced no danger in Germany, the country through which she travelled on her way to the Netherlands. Additionally, the TV report claimed, she applied for asylum using a fake name. Her actual birth name, the program claimed, was Ayaan Hirsi Magan.

The revelations aired by the television station aren't new. Four years ago, Hirsi Ali admitted that she had falsified her asylum application in order to escape a forced marriage. "Yes, I did lie to get asylum in Holland," Hirsi Ali told the Associated Press over the weekend. "This has been public knowledge since at least September 2002." Political opponents said Hirsi Ali should be kicked out of parliament and her citizenship status revoked.

Hirsi Ali became a naturalized Dutch citizen in 1997 and has served as a member of the Dutch parliament in The Hague as a representative of the Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD) since 2002.

It's been a tough couple of weeks for Hirsi Ali, who was wrapping up a book tour in the United States as the information resurfaced. A few weeks ago, a court ruled that she could be evicted from her apartment in the Dutch capital. Neighbors had complained that they felt harassed by the police who guard her apartment and the court gave Hirsi Ali until August to clear out.

Ali has been honored a number of times for her outspoken criticism of the treatment of women in Islam. The best-selling author of "The Caged Virgin: An Emancipation Proclamation for Women and Islam," was raised in a strict Muslim family and was subjected to genital mutilation in her youth. She was raised in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Kenya. When she was 23, her family ordered her to marry a Canadian cousin, but she escaped in Europe and established a new life here.

Holland's controversial immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, said that if she had been minister at the time of Hirsi Ali's application, she would have expelled her from the country. But now, she argues, too much time has passed. She said her ministry would investigate the case but that Hirsi Ali would have little to worry about.

Nevertheless, as the headline in De Volkskrant declared: "Holland has grown too small for Hirsi Ali." Instead she's going to try her luck in America.

Source

[pax 0]

Well, we will be lucky to have her.

[UmmSqueakster 54]

Umm, yeah, she's fleeing the Netherlands because she lied on her asylum application. Since when do we let in people who have knowingly and admittedly falsified immigration documents? I thought we kicked them out.

[Fandango 1,440]

i just pray for her safe journey and new life here.

[pax 0]

Umm, yeah, she's fleeing the Netherlands because she lied on her asylum application. Since when do we let in people who have knowingly and admittedly falsified immigration documents? I thought we kicked them out.

Au contraire, she is not. She's fleeing the Netherlands because the authorities have made it impossible for her to live there, right down to evicting her from her apartment because of the police protection she required.

[UmmSqueakster 54]

Au contraire, she is not. She's fleeing the Netherlands because the authorities have made it impossible for her to live there, right down to evicting her from her apartment because of the police protection she required.

Not from what I've read. She's basically going to be stripped of her citizenship (because she lied), and will have to leave.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4986418.stm

Ms Ali announced her decision at a news conference in the Hague.

"Today I resign as a member of parliament," she was quoted by AFP news agency as saying.

"I will leave the Netherlands, saddened but also relieved. I will pack my bags. I will go on."

Ms Ali came under pressure to resign after a Dutch television programme broadcast details of her falsified, 1992 asylum application.

Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk said in the light of the programme other facts, Ms Ali's citizenship was unlikely to be valid.

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_articl...&story_id=30031

There is legal precedent in the Netherlands for the argument that a person who lies to get asylum

automatically invalidates that status and any subsequent naturalisation.

...

But soon after that everything began to unravel for Hirsi Ali. Questions were asked why she should be treated differently from other asylum seekers who have been stripped of their status and Dutch citizenship for lying on their applications.

[pax 0]

She herself admitted several years ago that she did lie on her asylum application, but I don't think that's actually why she's leaving, not from what I've read. IMO.

I also suspect that had she not espoused deeply unpopular views in the Netherlands, it never would have come to light.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

She herself admitted several years ago that she did lie on her asylum application, but I don't think that's actually why she's leaving, not from what I've read. IMO.

Exactly. If her doctored asylum application would be the issue, all this should have happened 4 years ago when she publicly admitted to doctoring her asylum application. Instead, she ran for and was elected into the Dutch Parliament in 2003, a year after publicly admitting to fabricating her asylum application. And now it's this big deal? Please.

[Fischkoepfin 1]

Umm, yeah, she's fleeing the Netherlands because she lied on her asylum application. Since when do we let in people who have knowingly and admittedly falsified immigration documents? I thought we kicked them out.

Au contraire, she is not. She's fleeing the Netherlands because the authorities have made it impossible for her to live there, right down to evicting her from her apartment because of the police protection she required.

She's voluntarily leaving the Netherlands rather than fleeing. The reason she has to leave her appartment in a government-owned building is because her neighbors sued because they felt endangered by her presence, which is not really an eviction.

And as much as I feel for her, she has not only lied on her application, but she is also the member of a right-wing anti-immigrant party in the Netherlands and has greatly contributed to the polarization and increasing nationalism in her country. She has the right to her views, but sometimes I question whether her support of those who demand stricter immigration policies didn't work againt herself.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

The Muslim Mafia forced her out. This country is lucky to have her.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

And as much as I feel for her, she has not only lied on her application, ...

Of course, you haven't even heard of or imagined half the ####### that this woman has actually lived through.

[Elizabethnhenry 0]

I just hope she can be safe here and doesn't have to hide out for the rest of her life. Liar or not, I feel for her. I don't know if she started out intending to be brave, but I think she is very courageous.

Edited to say: I cannot judge her for lying. The US gov't gave me a visa when they gave one to my mom. I did not have to anything for it. I did not earn it. No one has ever threatened my life or persecuted me for my beliefs. I worship on a day that's different than most people and I am allowed that privilege. So I can't judge her and say that she is not entitled to grace and mercy because she lied. Are the men hunting her not bigger criminals than she and they can probably get a visa to come here and whack her with no problem.

Edited May 16, 2006 by Elizabethnhenry

[pax 0]

Wow, what a beautiful post, Elizabeth.

This woman has, I think, been made to fear for her life quite enough already.

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Feel the Peace yet?

[Fischkoepfin 1]

And as much as I feel for her, she has not only lied on her application, ...

Of course, you haven't even heard of or imagined half the ####### that this woman has actually lived through.

I've been following her story for a while, so I know what has happened to her. But that's still no reason to join a political party aiming at closing the borders to immigrants. That's self-defeatist...