1994: Bangladesh Author Nasrin  Flees to Sweden to Escape Death 
Threats
                        By ELISABET SODERSTROM
	            Associated Press Writer

STOCKHOLM, Sweden (AP) _ A feminist Bangladeshi writer under a
death threat from Islamic extremists fled Wednesday to Sweden,
where she immediately went into hiding.

Taslima  Nasrin spent two months in hiding in Bangladesh, where
Muslim fundamentalists were infuriated by a newspaper article that
quoted her as urging a revision of the Koran, the Islamic holy
book. Extremist groups have offered a $5,000 reward for her death.
 
Ms. Nasrin, 32, has said she was misquoted. But she has called
for changes in strict rules that limit many women in Bangladesh to
housework and child-rearing.

``I've come to Sweden ... to rest and work,'' the author 
said in
a statement distributed by Sweden's branch of the PEN international
writers' organization, which is hosting her.

Swedish officials welcomed Ms. Nasrin, whose plight has drawn
comparisons to Salman Rushdie's years in seclusion. Culture
Minister Birgit Friggebo said the author was ``forced to leave her
country for using her natural rights to write and say whatever she
wants.''

In Bangladesh, fundamentalist groups denounced the government
for letting Ms. Nasrin leave.

``If the government fails to bring her back to the country and
put her on trial, the people will topple the government and put its
leaders on trial for betraying the cause of Islam,'' said Shafiul
Alam Prodhan, spokesman for a coalition of 13 fundamentalist
groups.

Abdul Kader Mollah, spokesman for Bangladesh's leading
fundamentalist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, said the government ``will
have to pay a very heavy price'' for letting Ms. Nasrin go.

Ms. Nasrin is charged by a Bangladeshi court with offending the
religious sentiments of Muslims, a crime that carries a maximum
penalty of two years in prison.
She surrendered on Aug. 3 and was granted bail and allowed to
visit other countries if she informed the judge. No trial date has
been set.

``She was free to go anywhere she liked and that's what she
did,'' Bangladeshi Home Secretary Azimuddin Ahmed said.
Traveling on a tourist visa, Ms. Nasrin arrived in 
Stockholm around midday.

The Swedish foreign minister, Margaretha af Ugglas, said Ms.
Nasrin was staying at a ``secret place,'' but refused to give any
other information about her arrival.
It was uncertain how long Ms. Nasrin would stay in Sweden. 
She has been invited to a writers' conference next month in Norway,
where the government has said it would consider offering her
asylum. Asked whether Sweden also might offer Ms. Nasrin asylum, af
Ugglas said that was up to the author to decide.

``She has gotten invitations from many other countries,''  af
Ugglas said. ``What she needs now is rest. ... She was free to
leave Bangladesh and she is free to go back at any time.''

Ms. Nasrin is being hosted by the Swedish branch of PEN, which
had invited her to visit last spring, according to the Swedish news
agency TT.

The Swedish PEN also was active in supporting Rushdie, the
Indian-born author who has been in hiding since 1989, when Iran
declared his novel ``The Satanic Verses'' blasphemous to Islam and
put a bounty on his head.

On a recent visit to Oslo, Norway, Rushdie spoke on behalf of
Ms. Nasrin and criticized Bangladeshi authorities for not standing
up to fundamentalists.

Ms. Nasrin, a physician, angered Muslim activists last year with
her novel ``Shame,'' which depicted Muslim persecution of
Bangladesh's Hindu minority.

She has written extensively in newspapers and books advocating
greater freedom for women in the predominately Muslim country.

New York Times, 7/14/94

Following is an open letter from Salman Rushdie to Taslima Nasrin, a
Bangladeshi physician, newspaper columnist and author of the novel
"Shame," who is under death threats from Muslim clerics and faces
criminal charges from the Government for allegedly criticizing the
Koran.  Mr. Rushdie, who has been in hiding since being sentenced to
death by Iranian religious leaders in 1989, is organizing an
international protest on Ms. Nasrin's behalf by other prominent
writers.

By Salman Rushdie

I am sure you have become tired of being called "the female Salman
Rushdie" - what a bizarre and comical creature that would be! - when
all along you thought you were the female Taslima  Nasrin.  I am sorry
my name has been hung around your neck, but please know that there are
many people in many countries working to make sure that such
sloganizing does not obscure your identity, the unique features of 
your
situation and the importance of fighting to defend you and your rights
against those who would cheerfully see you dead.

In reality it is our adversaries who seem to have things in common, 
who
seem to believe in divine sanction for lynching and terrorism.  So
instead of turning you into a female me, the headline writers should 
be
describing your opponents as "the Bangladeshi Iranians." How sad it
must be to believe in a God of blood!  What an Islam they have made,
these apostles of death, and how important it is to have the courage 
to
dissent from it!

Great writers have agreed to lend their weight to the campaign on your
behalf: Czeslaw Milosz, Mario Vargas Llosa, Milan Kundera and more.
When such campaigns were run on my behalf, I found them immensely
cheering, and I know that they helped shape public opinion and
government attitudes in many countries.

You have spoken out about the oppression of women under Islam, and 
what
you said needed saying.  In the West, there are too many eloquent
apologists working to convince people of the fiction that women are 
not
discriminated against in Muslim countries or that, if they are, it has
nothing to do with the religion.  The sexual mutilation of women,
according to this argument, has no basis in Islam.  This may be true 
in
theory, but in many countries where this goes on, the mullahs
wholeheartedly support it.  And then there are the countless crimes of
violence within the home, the inequalities of legal systems that value
women's evidence below that of men, the driving of women out of the
workplace in all countries where Islamists have come to, or even near
to power.

You have spoken out about the attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh after 
the
destruction of the Ayodhya mosque in India by Hindu extremists.  Yet
any fair-minded person would agree that a religious attack by Muslims
on innocent Hindus is as bad as an attack by Hindus on innocent
Muslims.  Such simple fairness is the target of the bigots' rage, and
it is that fairness which, in defending you, we seek to defend.

You are accused of having said that the Koran should be revised 
(though
you have said that you were referring only to Islamic religious code).
You may have seen that only last week the Turkish authorities have
announced a project to revise these codes, so in that regard at least
you are not alone.  And even if you did say that the Koran should be
revised to remove its ambiguities about the rights of women, and even
if every Muslim man in the world were to disagree with you, it would
remain a perfectly legitimate opinion, and no society which wishes to
jail or hang you for expression it can call itself free.

Simplicity is what fundamentalists always say they are after, but in
fact they are obscurantists in all things.  What is simple is to agree
that if one may say "God exists" then another may also say "God does
not exist"; that if one may say "I loathe this book" then another may
also say "But I like it very much."  What is not at all simple is to 
be
asked to believe that there is only one thruth, one way of expressing
that truth, and one punishment (death) for those who say this isn't
so.

As you know, Taslima, Bengali culture - and I mean the culture of
Bangladesh as well as the Indian Bengal - has always prided itself on
its openness, its freedom to think and argue, its lack of bigotry.  It
is a disgrace that your Government has chosen to side with the
religious extremists against their own history, their own 
civilization,
their own values.  It is the treasure-house of the intelligence, the
imagination and the word that your opponents are trying to loot.

I have seen and heard reports that you are all sorts of dreadful 
things
- a difficult woman, an advocate (horror of horrors) of free love.  
Let
me assure you that those of use who are working on your behalf are 
well
aware that character assissination is normal in such situations, and
must be discounted.  And simplicity again has something valuable to 
say
on this issue: even difficult advocates of free love must be allowed 
to
stay alive, otherwise we sould be left only with those who believe 
that
love is something for which there must be a price - perhaps a terrible
price - to pay.

Taslima, I know that there must be a storm inside you now.  One minute
you will feel weak and helpless, another strong and defiant.  Now you
will feel betrayed and alone, and now you will have the sense of
standing for many who are standing silently with you.  Perhaps in your
darkest moments you will feel you did something wrong - that those
demanding your death may have a point.  This of all your goblins you
must exorcise first.  You have done nothing wrong.  The wrong is
committed by others against you.  You have done nothing wrong, and I 
am
sure that one day soon you will be free.

Character

You're a girl
and you'd better not forget
that when you step over the threshold of your house
men will look askance at you.
When you keep walking down the lane
men will follow you and whistle.
When you cross the lane and step onto the main road
men will revile you and call you a loose woman.

If you've got no character
you'll turn back,
and if not
you'll keep on going,
as you're going now.

Taslima's right to live in Bangladesh defended 
DHAKA, Sept. 21 (Agencies) 

In the first published appeal defending controversial author
Taslima Nasreen's right to live in Bangladesh, eminent
author Anwara Syed Haq has mounted a strident offensive
against the fundamentalists. 

"It is my fervent appeal to all of you to see to it that
these fundamentalist groups under no circumstances could
snatch away the rights and sovereignty of womenfolk
centering Taslima", she said in an article in the leading
Bengali daily Sangbad. 

Nasreen returned to Bangladesh on Sept. 14 following four
years of self exile after her novel Lajja (shame) attracted
the ire of fundamentalists on whose pressure the police
issued an arrest warrant against the doctor-turned-author.

Muslim clerics launch fresh campaign against Taslima

       The Hindu
       Sunday, September 27, 1998 8:00 p.m. IST

       Dhaka, Sept 27 (DPA): Radical Muslim clerics in Bangladesh today
mounted a fresh campaign demanding that
       feminist writer Taslima Nasreen be tried for blasphemy under Islamic
laws. Clerics called for Ms Nasreen's arrest
       and announced a country-wide protest against the reported return of
the 38-year-old writer to Bangladesh about two
       weeks ago. ``Taslima Nasreen can only be tried under the Shahria
laws, which provide for the death sentence for
       such sinners,'' said Shaikul Hadith Azizul Huq, chief of the Islamic
United Alliance, which is spearheading the
       campaign. Bangladesh, does not follow Shahria laws except in matters
of inheritance and Muslim marriages. Mr
       Huq said thousands of Islamic protesters would take to the streets
on October 4 warning the secular government of
       Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina against sheltering Nasreen. The move by
the clerics followed an arrest warrant
       issued by a local criminal court against Ms Nasreen on Friday to
answer to charges of anti-Islamic writings.

Nasrin surrenders to Bangladesh High Court

22 Nov 1998

   DHAKA, Nov 22 (AFP) - Feminist writer Taslima Nasreen, who spent  
four years in exile on charges of blasphemy, surrendered to the 
Bangladesh High Court Sunday in a surprise appearance where she was 
granted bail, officials said. 
   Nasreen secretly returned to Bangladesh in September after going  
into hiding in Sweden to escape death threats from Islamic 
fundamentalists in her home country. 
   The young writer looked nervous as she entered the court,  
accompanied by her lawyers and relatives and carrying a lower court 
warrant for her arrest on a blasphemy charge, a witness said. 
   She made no statement after emerging from the brief unscheduled  
hearing before senior judges Kazi Ebadul Huq and Awlad Ali. 
   Senior lawyer Dr. Kamal Hossain appeared in her defence, said  
officials who declined to give further details on the case. 
   Bangladeshi Joynal Abedin filed the charge in June 1994, amid  
accusations Nasreen had blasphemed against the Koran in her novel 
"Lajja" (Shame). 
   The writer returned to Dhaka secretly in September to look after  
her ailing mother. Nasreen has complained that she continued to 
receive threats and was obliged to live in a safe house here. 
   The dramatic court appearance and granting of bail came two  
weeks after Bangladesh's main fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party 
reportedly announced a 100,000 taka (2,000 dollar) reward for 
tracking her down. 
   Press reports early this month said the Jamaat branch in the  
southeastern port city of Chittagong announced the reward for anyone 
who could deliver her to police by November 15. 
   The party later denied it had issued any such offer, but said  
"Nasreen must face legal action for hurting the religious sentiment 
of the people -- this is the party's statement and announcement." 

Mother of feminist writer Nasreen dies of cancer in Bangladesh

   DHAKA, Jan 12 (AFP) - The mother of feminist writer Taslima  
Nasreen has died of cancer four months after her daughter defied 
death threats to return with her to Bangladesh, family sources said 
Tuesday. 
   Idul Owara, 61, died late Monday at her home in a village in the  
northern Mymensingh district, they said, adding that Nasreen was at 
her bedside along with other family members. 
   Dhaka's Bengaili daily newspaper Bhorer Kagoj reported that  
Owara would be buried later Tuesday at a village graveyard. 
   No other details were available and Nasreen was unavailable for  
comment. 
   Nasreen secretly returned to Bangladesh from New York in  
September along with her ailing mother after going into hiding in 
Sweden to escape death threats from Islamic fundamentalists in her 
home country. 
   The doctors who treated her mother in the United States had  
given her only a few months to survive. Nasreen was later quoted as 
saying that she returned to Bangladesh to be with her mother in her 
last days. 
   Since her return Nasreen has gone into hiding, saying she  
continued to receive death threats. She stayed out of sight until 
late November when she suddenly appeared before a Dhaka court which 
granted her bail. 
   The controversial writer spent four years in exile and was  
facing charges of blasphemy. 
   Bangladeshi Joynal Abedin filed the charge in June 1994, amid  
accusations that Nasreen had blasphemed the Koran in her novel 
"Lajja" (Shame). 

Further death threats received

   DHAKA, Jan 24 (AFP) - Feminist writer Taslima Nasreen has  
received further death threats after a leading Bangladeshi poet 
escaped an attempt on his life by Moslem fundamentalists, police 
said here Sunday. 
   An official in Dhaka said police had been asked to ensure the  
writer's security after she requested protection following several 
anonymous death threat telephone calls made in the past three days 
to her family home in northern Mymensingh district, 68 miles (109 
kilometres) from Dhaka. 
   The threats came after police last week arrested 10 alleged  
members of a Moslem extremist group after an attempt on the life of 
poet Shamsur Rahman at his Dhaka residence. 
   During the arrests, police said they seized a list of several  
intellectuals and writers including Nasreen, whom local Islamic 
fundamentalist groups had branded as "enemies of Islam." 
   "The arrested people claimed to be members of a group namely  
Harkat-uz-Zihad and confessed that they had planned to kill the 
listed persons," one police official said on Saturday, adding a 
massive manhunt was launched across the country to arrest the 
alleged gang leader. 
   Nasreen secretly returned to Bangladesh from New York in  
September along with her ailing mother after going into hiding in 
September along with her ailing mother after going into hiding in 
Sweden to escape death threats from Islamic fundamentalists in her 
home country. 
   Since her return Nasreen has gone into hiding, saying she  
continued to receive death threats. She stayed out of sight until 
late November when she suddenly appeared before a Dhaka court which 
granted her bail. 
   Nasreen, who spent four years in exile, was facing a charge of  
blasphemy filed by Bangladeshi Joynal Abedin in June 1994, amid 
accusations that Nasreen had blasphemed the Koran in her novel 
"Lajja" (Shame). 
   Her mother Idul Owara, 61, died earlier this month at her home  
village with Nasreen at her bedside along with other family 
members. 

Nasrin returns to Sweden

   STOCKHOLM, Jan 26 (AFP) - Bangladesh's feminist writer Taslima  
Nasreen has returned to Sweden, officials said here Tuesday, after 
she fled renewed Moslem death threats at home. 
   Nasreen was staying at a secret location in Sweden following her  
arrival here on Monday, foreign ministry spokesman Jens Odlander 
told TT news agency. 
   The foreign ministry had been expecting Nasreen, who has a  
permanent residency visa to Sweden, after contacts with Bangladesh 
authorities, Odlander said. 
   He did not want to comment on why she chose to return to Sweden,  
which she first fled to in 1994. 
   "I think it is fair to let her tell us herself, when she chooses  
to do so," he said. "She has many friends here, but I do not know 
what they plan to do." 
   She had left Bangladesh on a British Airways flight, reports  
from Dhaka said. 
   After Bangkadesh's celebrated poet Shamsur Rahman escaped an  
assassination attempt earlier this month from extreme rightwing 
Moslem fundamentalist groups, Nasreen sought government protection. 
   Those arrested from Rahman's residence after the attempt on his  
life told police Nasreen was on their hit list. 
   Nasreen returned to Bangladesh secretly from New York in  
September with her ailing mother, who died of cancer early this 
month. 
   When she first fled Bangladesh to escape death threats from  
Islamic fundamentalists in her home country she headed initially to 
Sweden. 
   Since her return Nasreen had remained in hiding, saying she  
continued to receive death threats. She stayed out of sight until 
late November when she suddenly appeared before a Dhaka court which 
granted her bail. 
   Nasreen, who spent four years in exile, was facing charges of  
blasphemy. 
   Bangladeshi Joynal Abedin filed the charge in June 1994, amid  
accusations that Nasreen had blasphemed the Koran in her novel 
"Lajja" (Shame), which the writer repeatedly denied.