Price of Speaking up Against Radical Islam

To defend Taslima Nasreen, sign the below petition by clicking here:

We, the undersigned, are writing to register our strongest protest at yet more death threats made against writer, humanist, secularist and human rights activist Taslima Nasreen. This time, Taqi Raza Khan the president of an Islamic group, the All-India Ibtehad Council, has offered a bounty of about £8,000 for her beheading. This and other clear threats to her life require that the Indian government bring the full force of the law to bear on him and those who threaten and incite murder and terror. Taqi Raza Khan has warned the Indian government that if she is not driven out of India within ten days ‘all hell will break loose’. In fact, it is the other way around. Taslima has every right to freely express her views on Islam and Sharia law and in favour of women’s rights and equality. The Indian government is duty bound to protect her from these threats and grant her the citizenship she requires so that she may live without fear of expulsion.

Taslima Nasreen is a physician, writer, radical feminist, human rights activist and a secular humanist. Her first book of poetry was published in 1986. Her second became a huge success in 1989. Next she started writing about women's oppression. In 1992 she received the prestigious literary award Ananda from West Bengal in India for her Selected Columns, the first writer from Bangladesh to earn that award. Islamic fundamentalists launched a campaign against her in 1990, staging street demonstrations and processions. In 1993, Soldiers of Islam issued a fatwa against her, a price was set on her head because of her criticism of Islam, and she was confined to her house. Taslima has been living in exile. She has written twenty eight books of poetry, essays, novels, and short stories in her native language of Bengali. Many have been translated into twenty different languages.