Amsterdam, 29 July (AKI) - A court in The Hague has approved a request by Somali-born ex-MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali for witnesses to be heard in her claim for the Dutch state to pay for her security in the US, Dutch media reported on Tuesday.
The Dutch government stopped paying for Hirsi Ali's police protection after she moved to the US permanently last year.An outspoken critic of Islam and advocate of women's rights, Hirsi Ali had to live under police protection in the Netherlands after receiving death threats. She now works for a conservative US think-tank.
"Hirsi Ali clearly had protection in the Netherlands because she was in danger and probably still is," a senior researcher at the Netherlands Institute of International Relations' security programme, Bibi Van Ginkel, told Adnkronos International (AKI).
"She has for some time been the voice and face of women's emancipation under Islam, and is clearly under some threat," Van Ginkel said.
Hirsi Ali's radical opinions expressed in her writings and lectures have "really insulted some people," she said.
But Hirsi Ali is a former MP and public figure, and the Dutch government should "try and arrange some kind of protection" in cooperation with the US authorities, she argued.
"The Dutch government cannot look the other way and shouldn't try and get out but find more of a solution than it has done," said Van Ginkel.
She said the Dutch government had provided some extra protection for Hirsi Ali at the beginning of her stay in the US.
Former Dutch deputy Prime Minister Gerrit Zalm, Netherlands anti-terror chief Tjibbe Joustra and Justice Minister Ernst Hrsch Ballin, are among those Hirsi Ali has reportedly requested to be heard as witnesses.
The preliminary hearing is expected to be heard on two consecutive days later in this year. This could result in a full court case in which Hirsi Ali challenges the Dutch state to continue to pay for her security in the US.
In her orginal court application in May, Airsi Ali asked for eight witnesses to be heard, but on Monday the court said the number would initially be restricted to five.
A motion in the European Parliament to fund Hirsi Ali's US security failed in March to reach a quorum of half the deputies in the 785-member body.
Hirsi Ali has also set up a fund to finance her security in the US. "She has raised a considerable sum but it is not enough to pay for everything," Van Ginkel said.
Hirsi Ali wrote the screenplay for 'Submission', a controversial film criticising domestic violence towards Muslim women made by Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh.
A Dutch-Moroccan extremist Mohammed Bouyeri murdered Van Gogh in an Amsterdam street soon after the film was aired on Dutch television.
Hirsi Ali was given round-the-clock police protection after Bouyeri pinned a letter to Van Gogh's chest containing explicit threats towards her.
She has just written a children's book with Anna Gray, entitled 'Adan and Eva', about the impossible friendship between a Muslim boy and a Jewish girl.
Hirsi Ali's co-author is writing under a pseudonym, as she fears the book could put her life in danger. It is being translated into English, Danish, Spanish and Italian.
Source: AKI
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