Muslim lawmakers attack Taslima Nasreen
drawControls(); 1 of 1Full Size
HYDERABAD, India (Reuters) - Muslim protesters assaulted the exiled
Bangladeshi author and feminist Taslima Nasreen at a book launch in Hyderabad
on Thursday, incensed by her repeated criticism of Islam and religion in
general.
Some radical Muslims hate Nasreen for saying Islam and other religions
oppress women.
On Thursday, lawmakers and members of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul
Muslimeen party attacked her at the press club in Hyderabad at the launch of a
Telugu translation of one of her novels.
An uneasy-looking Nasreen backed into a corner as several middle-aged men
threw a leather case, bunches of flowers and other objects at her head and
threatened her with a chair, according to a Reuters witness and television
pictures.
Some of the mob shouted for her death.
Other men tried to shield her and catch the projectiles. She ended up with a
bruised forehead, and described the attack as barbaric before being taken to
safety by police.
Nasreen fled Bangladesh for the first time in 1994 when a court said she had
"deliberately and maliciously" hurt Muslims' religious feelings with her
Bengali-language novel "Lajja", or "Shame", which is about riots between
Muslims and Hindus.
At the time, thousands of radical Muslims protested against her, demanding
that she be killed for blasphemy, and some have continued to threaten her life
ever since.
Police said they have arrested three state lawmakers from the political party
along with 15 party workers.
Nasreen - sometimes spelled "Nasrin" - was born into a Muslim family in
Bangladesh, a conservative, predominantly Islamic country.
The author, who lives in Kolkata, now describes herself as a secular
humanist, and criticises religion as an oppressive force.
In 2004, a Muslim cleric offered a $440 reward to anyone who was able to
successfully humiliate Nasreen by blackening her face with shoe polish or ink
or by garlanding her with shoes.
She worked as a doctor before turning to writing, and several of her books
have been banned in India and Bangladesh because they upset hardline Muslims.
The European Parliament awarded her the Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought
in 1994.
http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-28903220070809
---------------------------------
Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s user panel
and lay it on us._______________________________________________
assam mailing list
[email protected]
http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
