EU-DIGEST

Ayaan Hirsi Ali: hero or phony? - Controversial Politician says Thanks But No Thanks to stay in Denmark

"Persecuted" Politician and author Ayaan Hirsi Ali said she was ‘touched and honoured’ by Denmark’s offer of protected residence but is choosing to stay in the United States. On Sunday, the culture minister, Brian Mikkelsen, said Denmark would give the 37-year-old Dutch-Ethiopian author Ayaan Hirsi Ali asylum. The offer was made under the provisions established by the International City of Refuge Network, where ‘free cities’ are established for writers whose lives have been threatened because of their publications. Ali told Jyllands-Posten newspaper in an interview that it made more sense for her to remain in the United States. In a speech to Europe’s Liberal Democrats (ELDR) congress A Liberal Europe for a Free World, to which network Hirsi Ali’s political party VVD belongs, the Danish PM Mr. Rasmussen insisted on the liberal democracies’ obligation to protect persecuted writers like Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Note EU-Digest: Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is not Ethiopian as is reported in Denmark and by the US Conservative sources but Somali-born. Earlier the Dutch news program Zembla also disclosed she had told a variety of lies about her past in order to get asylum in the Netherlands in 1992. Zembla retraced Hirsi Ali's journey from Somalia, via Kenya, to the Netherlands and uncovered both well-documented and previously unreported inconsistencies in her story. Interviews with her brother, aunt and ex-husband raised doubts about Hirsi Ali's contention she fled to Europe to escape possible retribution from her family for not going through with an arranged marriage. Her relatives contradicted her claim that she was not present during the wedding to the Canadian-Somali man. Hirsi Ali said she was forced to marry a stranger but her ex-husband said they had been in love and spent the week together after the wedding. He then went back to Canada to prepare for her arrival. Supplied with a plane ticket, Hirsi Ali later arrived in Germany and took a train to Amsterdam rather than continue the planned journey to Canada. The program-makers said it was decided to look into her past because of differing accounts she has given over the years about her past. Hirsi Ali said she came clean about the lies she told to get asylum when she joined the Conservative Dutch Liberal Party (VVD) in 2002. Yet prominent VVDer (and now EU Commissioner) Neelie Kroes described Hirsi Ali as a person who had lived through five civil wars in Somalia. This was not true as Hirsi Ali lived in Kenya for over 10 years before coming to the Netherlands. Insiders consider Ms Hirsi Ali a "very intelligent manipulating opportunist" and it seems even the PM of Denmark has become entangled in this controversy.

Labels: Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Denmark, EU, The Netherlands