Dutch Member of Parliament, Somali-born Ayaan Hirsi Ali, pauses during a news conference in Berlin yesterday. - REUTERS
BERLIN (Reuters):
A DUTCH politician and self-styled Muslim dissident urged Europeans to stand firm yesterday in an international crisis over cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, saying it was "necessary and urgent" to criticise Islam.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali praised newspapers in many countries which have printed the cartoons, considered blasphemous by many Muslims, but said others had held back for fear of criticising what she called "intolerant aspects of Islam".
"Today I am here to defend the right to offend within the bounds of the law," she told a news conference organised by her publisher during a visit to Berlin.
"It's necessary and it's urgent to criticise Islam. It is urgent to criticise the teachings of Mohammad."
Hirsi Ali, who was born in Somalia and brought up as a Muslim, has received frequent death threats for her criticism of Islam, including in a controversial film called Submission for which she wrote the script.
Its director Theo van Gogh was shot and stabbed to death by a Dutch-born Islamist militant in 2004, and a note threatening Hirsi Ali was pinned to his chest with a knife.
"Many Muslims are peaceful people; not all are fanatics. As far as I am concerned they have every right to be faithful to their convictions. But within Islam exists a hard-line Islamist movement that rejects democratic freedoms and wants to destroy them," the Dutch liberal member of parliament said.
FREE SPEECH
She heaped shame on editors and politicians who had argued it was insensitive or irresponsible to reproduce the Mohammad cartoons, including one showing him with a bomb in his turban.
Hirsi Ali praised Denmark's Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for rejecting demands from "tyrannical regimes" that he limit freedom of the press.
European Union member states should compensate Danish companies for losses they had suffered from boycotts of their goods in the Middle East, she said.
"Liberty does not come cheap. A few million euros is worth paying for the defence of free speech."
Publication of the cartoons has incensed Muslims across the world and led to often violent protests in which at least 11 people have been killed.
Hirsi Ali said critical reactions in Europe had highlighted the presence of "a considerable minority ... who do not understand or will not accept the workings of liberal democracy." Some Muslims had a tendency to "play the victim" and complain, without justification, that their religion was under attack.
She listed among her criticisms of Mohammad his teachings on gays, apostates, the subordination of women, the flogging and stoning of adulterers and the cutting-off of thieves' hands.
Hirsi Ali said she intended to press ahead with a sequel to "Submission" which should appear at the end of this year.
Asked about the threats to her life, she said: "I have a reasonable fear, yes, I have protection. But I also will not allow myself to be put in a state of fear that will lead me to panic or to silence."
2006-02-09 15:52:50 GMT (Reuters)
