Author: AFP
Publication: The Times of India
Date: January 3, 2009
URL: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Taslima_Nasreen_to_settle_in_Paris/articleshow/3931484.cms
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, under
threat of death from Islamist extremists who accuse her of blasphemy in her
writings, is to take up residence in Paris, the city hall said on Saturday.
Municipal authorities will provide her with
a large studio in an artists' residence in the 10th arrondissement, in the
east of the French capital, and initially pay her rent.
Nasreen, who was made an honorary citizen
of Paris in July 2008, put in an application for housing six weeks ago.
"You are at home here, in the city where
it was proclaimed that men are born and remain free and equal and nobody can
be condemned for their beliefs," Paris mayor Bertrand Delanoe said when
she was given honorary citizenship.
Nasreen was forced to flee her native country
in 1994 after her novel "Lajja" (Shame), about the persecution of
a Hindu family by Muslims in Bangladesh, drew accusations of blasphemy.
A gynaecologist by training, she spent several
years moving between Europe and the United States before settling in India
in 2004. Renewed threats drove her to Sweden in March 2008.
