Hirsi Ali Looks For Sponsors

Ayaan Hirsi Ali will try to find sponsors in the Netherlands and abroad this week to help pay for her protection. The moderate-conservative atheist feminist, vocal critic of Islam, and former Dutch parliamentarian has appointments to meet with a number of potential donors, her lawyer Britta Böhler has confirmed. The Dutch government stopped financing the former politician's security abroad last Monday. The cabinet says that the Netherlands is only responsible for Ms. Hirsi Ali's protection when she is in the Netherlands, and she now resides in the U.S. and recently acquired permanent residency.

Ms. Böhler said that her client would be under security during her visits this week. In the interest of her client's safety Ms. Böhler did not want to say where Ms. Hirsi Ali is and who is paying for her security at the moment. Ms. Hirsi Ali will return to the Netherlands after her appointments this week.

Parliament is expected to ask for more information from Justice Minister Ernst Hirsch Ballin during an emergency debate this week. The VVD, the center-right political party of which Ms. Hirsi Ali is a member, wants to know whether it is true that Ms. Hirsi Ali was unable to officially fundraise until after receiving her green card from the U.S. on September 24.

Anne Applebaum over at The Washington Post wonders if the Dutch are retreating from their long-time advocacy of free speech rights: "To put it bluntly, many in Holland find her too loud, too public in her condemnation of radical Islam. She doesn't sound conciliatory, in the modern continental fashion. Compare her description of Islam as 'brutal, bigoted, fixated on controlling women' with the German judge who, citing the Koran, in January told a Muslim woman trying to obtain a divorce from her violent husband that she should have 'expected' her husband to deploy the corporal punishment his religion approves. Hirsi Ali herself says she is often told, in so many words, that she's 'brought her problems on herself.' Now the Dutch prime minister openly says he wants her to deal with them alone. Fortunately, Hirsi Ali is already back in the United States, under professional, full-time, well-resourced and for the moment privately organized protection. But this week, the Dutch parliament is due to debate her status once again. And once again, the Dutch will be confronted with the facts that Hirsi Ali remains a Dutch citizen; that the threat to her life comes at least in part from groups based in Holland; that she lives abroad because the Dutch political situation forced her to; and that when she speaks out, she does so in defense of what she believes to be Dutch values. Whether or not the Dutch like it -- and I'm sure most of them don't -- revoking her police protection will send a clear message to the world: that the Dutch are no longer willing to protect their own traditions of free speech. Resources will be found, and she will recover. But will Holland?"