Taslima Nasrin
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Dr. Taslima Nasrin, also known as Taslima Nasreen, (born 25 August 1962 in Mymensingh, Bangladesh) is a writer.
Taslima Nasrin stands up for equal rights for women and opposes oppression of non-Islamic minorities in Islamic societies, like in her home country Bangladesh.
In 1993 Islamic fundamentalists pronounced a fatwa against her and put a price on her head, sparked by a series of newspaper columns, in which she was critical of the treatment of women under Islam. The next year she wrote Lajja (a Bangala word meaning Shame) which described the abuse of women and minorities. Again there were calls for her death, and her passport was confiscated. She was forced to leave her country, escaping via Calcutta. Within the legal system of her native country, she feels that she may have faced a jail term of up to two years it, but it is very likely that she might have been murdered within the jail. In the same year she received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.
Nasrin once again raised the ire of officials in her native Bangladesh with her new book Utal Hawa Pol (Wild Wind). The government has called for her arrest and banned the publication, sale, distribution and collection of the novel. The Home Ministry claims that it "contains anti-Islam sentiments and statements that could destroy the religious harmony of Bangladesh".
The Indian Rationalist Association, the Rationalist International, and the Council for Secular Humanism have given Nasrin consistent support. She often writes for the council's magazine Free Inquiry where she also serves as Senior Editor.
Taslima Nasrin is an Honorary Associate of Rationalist International.
In November 2003, a Dhaka court banned the sale or distribution of Nasreen's latest book, "Ka," an account of Nasreen's relationships with Bangladeshi intellectuals, in response to a defamation suit filed by a Bangladeshi writer.
In February of 2005, Nasreen, who has been living in exile in Sweden, told Indian television that she was seeking citizenship in India.
Books by Taslima Nasrin
- Lajja, Shame
- Meyebela: My Bengali Girlhood - A Memoir of Growing Up Female in a Muslim World ISBN 1586420518
- The Game in Reverse: Poems and Essays by Taslima Nasrin
- Utal Hawa Pol
- The French Lover
External links
- For freedom of expression - by Taslima Nasreen (http://www.unesco.org/webworld/points_of_views/nasreen_121199.shtml)
- Bulletin # 102 (http://www.rationalistinternational.net/archive/en/rationalist_2002/102.htm#3) RATIONALIST INTERNATIONAL article
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