Ayaan Hirsi Ali Press Statement on Resignation from Parliament

Excerpts from the press release:

I will continue to ask uncomfortable questions, despite the obvious resistance that they elicit. I feel that I should help other people to live in freedom, as many people have helped me. I personally have gone through a long and sometimes painful process of personal growth in this country. It began with learning to tell the truth to myself, and then the truth about myself: I strive now to also tell the truth about society as I see it.

(...)

Ladies and Gentlemen, as of today, I resign from Parliament. I regret that I will be leaving the Netherlands, the country which has given me so many opportunities and enriched my life, but I am glad that I will be able to continue my work. I will go on.

Read it all

GOOD LUCK!

Update: Live-blogging from AHA press conference and debate on Verdonk

Femke Halsema, leader of GroenLinks (Green Left), reveals the email address of AHA: magan@tweedekamer.nl. This means that just about everyone in The Hague must have known AHA lied about her name for years - and there's absolutely no reason why Verdonk would start an investigation into her now - apart from opportunism borne of the desire to become the leader of the VVD party.

Dutch PBS reports that the VVD and CDA, the two main parties that form the government, will ask of Verdonk to reconsider her decision - or else.

Give Hirsi Ali a new passport and sack Immigration Minister Verdonk!

Update: That could actually happend:

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch parliament demanded on Wednesday that the immigration minister reconsider her decision to strip a Somali-born lawmaker of her passport for falsifying her asylum claim, or else grant her citizenship anew.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an outspoken critic of Islam, said she was resigning on Tuesday after Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk, a member of her own VVD liberal party, told her she might lose her Dutch passport because she lied on her asylum application.

In a parliament debate on the issue that raged into the early hours of Wednesday, Verdonk, a hardliner bidding to become her party's candidate for prime minister in the 2007 elections, came under fire from all the main parties, including her own.

Verdonk said she accepted a demand by parliament to reconsider her decision within six weeks and said she would also look at any new request for citizenship immediately.

*APPLAUSE*

Tags: ayaan hirsi ali, ayan, press, release