As noted over the weekend, human rights crusader Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been under harassment from her political opponents who would prefer to rid the Netherlands of an inconvenient opponent of Islamism rather than the jihadi Muslim scourge itself.

A Somali-born member of Parliament who became an internationally known opponent of some violent types of Islam said Tuesday she will resign and leave Holland after the government said she was improperly granted citizenship.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been under police protection since a film she wrote criticizing the treatment of women under Islam provoked the murder of its director, Theo van Gogh, by an Islamic radical.

Hirsi Ali said she had made the decision to resign Monday night, after Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk told her "she would strip me of my Dutch citizenship."

"I am therefore preparing to leave Holland," Hirsi Ali told reporters in The Hague.

Hirsi Ali has acknowledged that she lied on an asylum application in 1992. But after a television program again reported on the matter last week, Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk ruled Monday that her naturalization had been improperly granted.

Hirsi Ali was placed under guard after Van Gogh's murderer left a note threatening her was pinned on the filmmaker's corpse with a knife.

Hirsi Ali will likely be taking a position with the American Enterprise Institute, beginning in September. This could be an interesting mix.

Leon de Winter, an English-language blogger for the conservative German daily Die Welt, said, "She rocks the boat. As a member of the Dutch parliament for the liberal party she scares the insipid appeasers of the centre-left who'd like nothing better than to ignore what she has to say. What the racist right think of her is perhaps best left unsaid."

The report that Ali would join AEI was "premature," he added.

The Dutch media reaction to her prospective exile to America has been mixed, according to Expatica.com. Some political allies have expressed regret, while a spokesman for a Dutch Muslim group said her departure would contribute to religious understanding. An AEI spokesman cited a blanket policy of not commenting on personnel decisions.

In light of her loss of citizenship in the dhimmified Dutch nation, I again call upon American authorities to act to grant her immediate American citizenship in recognition of her activities on behalf of human rights.

UPDATE: The Washington Post has a later write-up that is none-too-friendly to Hirsi Ali.

Posted by: Greg at 09:32 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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