"Sticks and stone
Will break your bones
If you write words
That offend us."
-- Traditional Muslim Nursery Rhyme

For more than a decade, the writer Taslima Nasrin has been fighting; fighting against the courts, fighting to be heard and fighting for her life. Last night, the Bangladeshi-born author was struggling again as violent protests in one city – and the purported threat of further violent protests in another – saw her shuttling across India to avoid angry Muslims who have accused her of insulting Islam.

"I have no place to go. India is my home and I would like to keep living in this country until I die," the Sakharov Prize winner told The Hindu newspaper. "Here in this country, I have got the love and sympathy of the people for which I am grateful."

On Thursday, Nasrin was forced to flee from the city of Kolkata where she has been living for the past two years, a day after Muslim activists led protests against her which resulted 50 people being injured and the imposition of a curfew. The All India Minorities Forum, a Muslim group, has demanded she be deported not just from Kolkata, formerly known as Calcutta, but from India.

But after one night in Jaipur, Rajasthan, the authorities there decided that Nasrin should also leave to avoid the risk of a repetition of violence. "She didn't inform the government of Rajasthan before coming here and as she requires high security we asked her to leave," the Home Minister, Gulab Chand Kataria, told reporters. As a result Nasrin was last night headed to Delhi, and presumably further controversy.

On a daily basis, Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists and members of many other religious groups see writings that in some way offend their religious beliefs. Somehow, such offense rarely breaks out into violence, and the authors of such writings don't have to flee their homes on a regular basis because of mobs of believers bent on murder rioting in the streets. Heck, not even a cult like Scientology tries to kill its critics anymore -- though they do try to sue them into silence. But Big Mo's Cult of Hate and Violence regularly turns out loads of blood-thirsty true-believers when their religious sensibilities are touched upon by those who reject the false teachings of the Quran.

When will world leaders begin to speak out forcefully against the continual violations of human rights perpetrated in the name of Islam? And I don't mean bland condemnations like those heard after the Rushdie fatwa 20 years ago, but forceful statements containing clear and unambiguous consequences for those who seek to impose the chains of sharia upon those who reject them.

Posted by: Greg at 03:31 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 462 words, total size 3 kb.