NETHERLANDS: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch politician and outspoken critic of Islam, said yesterday she was leaving parliament and the Netherlands after hearing she may be stripped of her citizenship for lying to win asylum.
Hirsi Ali, a friend of murdered film-maker Theo van Gogh, said she was resigning after immigration minister Rita Verdonk, a member of her own VVD liberal party, told her she might lose her Dutch passport because she lied on her asylum application.
"I am ending my membership of parliament. I will leave the Netherlands. Sad and relieved, I will pack my bags again. I will go on," she told a news conference, her voice breaking.
Hirsi Ali, whose attacks on the oppression of Muslim women attracted death threats, admitted using a false name and date of birth when she arrived in 1992 to stop her family finding her after she fled an arranged marriage with a cousin in Canada.
However, she said that had been public knowledge when the VVD chose her as a candidate for parliament in 2002 and said she could not understand why Verdonk had taken such a harsh view after a television programme reported on her past last week.
"I am not proud that I lied when I sought asylum in the Netherlands. It was wrong to do so. I did it because I felt I had no choice," the 36-year-old said. "I was frightened that if I gave my real name, my clan would hunt me down and find me."
Hirsi Ali said she regretted leaving the country that had given her refuge and many opportunities, but said she had decided to move abroad even before the asylum row because her security situation was becoming increasingly unbearable.
She said she would take up an international position where she could continue her fight for the rights of Muslim women. Dutch media said she would move to the US to work for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.
"I am going away, but the questions remain. The questions about the future of Islam in our country, the suppression of women in Islamic culture and the integration of the many Muslims in the West," she said.
Hirsi Ali, who took odd jobs after arriving in the Netherlands before working as a translator for asylum seekers while she studied political science, won Dutch citizenship in 1997 and was elected to parliament for the VVD in 2003.
In a parliamentary debate yesterday, politicians criticised the speed at which Verdonk had reached a decision about Hirsi Ali's citizenship and said they wanted the minister to quickly consider any new application for citizenship. Hirsi Ali went into hiding in 2004 when an Islamic militant killed Van Gogh after he directed a film she wrote accusing Islam of suppressing women. The film, featuring veiled women with texts from the Koran written on their bare skin, angered many of the one million Muslims who live in the Netherlands.
The murderer, a Dutch-Moroccan, left a note threatening Hirsi Ali pinned to Van Gogh's body with a knife. She returned to parliament a few months later, but has continued to live under heavy guard.
A court has ruled that she must leave her government-protected home by August because her presence put her neighbours' security at risk.
The Netherlands has tightened immigration policies since the 2002 rise of populist Pim Fortuyn, who said the country could not absorb more foreigners. He was killed by an animal rights activist later that year but others have taken up his ideas.