.bmp)
.bmp)
Mumbai, India-A rancorous crowd of about 100 Islamic militants broke into a news conference and assaulted exiled Bangladeshi novelist Taslima Nasrin on Thursday, hurling books, bouquets of flowers and abuse at the author who has enraged many Muslims with writings harshly critical of their religion.Nasrin, who has received several death threats over the past 15 years, was shaken but not badly hurt.The melee, shown repeatedly on Indian television, occurred in Hyderabad, a cosmopolitan city of high-tech industries that bridges north and south India.The attackers included three elected politicians belonging to a locally based hard-line Muslim political party.Shouting slogans accusing Nasrin of ridiculing Islam, the protesters surged into the press club where she was presenting a newly published translation of her book "Shodh," or "Getting Even." They overturned chairs and cornered Nasrin, a slightly built woman, shouting that she should leave India.The author was protected by a small cordon of other guests in the club who absorbed most of the tossed debris. One attacker tried to throw a chair before police were called to empty the room. They made at least three arrests, Indian media reported.The national government condemned the attack and said it would extend Nasrin's six-month visa, which was to expire this month."I hope to live safely in this country as a democrat," said Nasrin, 44, after being escorted to safety by police. "The people who attacked me are in a minority. I get support and sympathy from a majority of people."In the West, Nasrin's defiance of clerical authority and her refusal to be cowed by death threats or the banning of her books have made her a symbol of free speech. But she is a polarizing figure in India, even though the government offered her temporary shelter two years ago because she is barred from returning to her native Bangladesh.Nasrin, educated as a physician, began writing in the early 1990s and has turned out a rising tide of novels, autobiography and poetry, much of it accusing the world's religions - and Islam in particular - of denying women equal rights. She is a proclaimed secularist and accuses fundamentalists of stoking hatred among faiths.She fled Bangladesh in 1994 after receiving death threats from enraged Islamists. Religious edicts calling for her to be attacked or killed have accumulated during her exile, initially while she was living in the West and continuing in India. She now lives in a Calcutta apartment. Two police officers sit outside her door.
PS:Even though I don't side with feminists,I think this is another example of "Islamic craze and intolerance towards others"It's a proven fact that Islam is not synonim of PEACE and that everytime that they crossed roads with other cultures or even here in the West they have always caused turmoil and controversy.Muslims are VIOLENT IN NATURE and that fueled-and permitted-by the Kuran.....Remember sura 47:5....!!!!They don't fool us here!!!!
As in the days of Noah...
