News of: Monday, October 01 2007,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali returned from the US to the Netherlands this morning, as her safety in the US could no longer be guaranteed.
Hirsi Ali is a prominent and controversial author, film maker, and critic of Islam, who went to the Netherlands as a refugee from Somalia.
She was a member of Parliament in the Netherlands for the VVD (liberal conservatives). A political crisis surrounding the potential stripping of her Dutch citizenship led to her resignation from the parliament, and indirectly to the fall of the Second Balkenende cabinet.
She then moved to the US, to work for the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative thinktank.
Due to numerous death threats (she was a friend of the assassinated film maker Theo van Gogh), she got protection and a secret residence from the Dutch government.
The Dutch government no longer wanted to pay for her security in the US, upon which she apparently decided she had to move back to the Netherlands.
She will continue her work for the American Enterprise Institute, from her residence in the Netherlands.
Ayaan Hirsi Ali