From: sushma-AT-mos.com.np
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 1998 00:15:33 +0530
Subject: Update on Taslima Nasreen


On the topic of controversial symbols and fundamentalist reactions, this
article was in the Kathmandu Post today, with a photo of a large group
of men (presumably "The Fundamentalists") being beaten up by the police
with upraised sticks. In any other context it would be read as a image
of human rights violation - just goes to show how contexts shift and
definitions change in times of crisis - sushma//


CONTROVERSIAL WRITER'S INTERVIEW SPARKS VIOLENCE 

Dhaka: Oct 4 (AFP)- Police fired tear gas and used batons Sunday when
Muslim fundamentalists took to the streets after the BBC broadcast here
an interview with Bangladesh's controversial writer Taslima Nasreen.

Several hundred activists from the Islamic Oikya Jote hurled stones at
police after they were refused entry to the restricted Bangladesh
Secretariat complex in downtown Dhaka to give a memorandum to Home
Minister Rafiqul Islam sparking the brief clashes, witnesses said.

They chanted slogans like "put Nasreen on trail" and "Hang Nasreen". 

Police arrested 12 activists for violence and defying a ban on staging
marches or protests around the complex, the heart of government.

They said the protesters damaged windsheilds of some 15 cars before
being dispersed when police chased them and hurled three tear gas
canisters. Witnesses said none were injured seriously.

The incident occured a day after the feminist writer in a radio
interview with the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) here demanded
government protection against fundamentalist threats.

"I demand security from the government - I have been forced to remain in
hiding since arriving" September 14, she said.

Nasreen denied allegations of hurting religious sentiments, saying: "I
don't think I have hurt anybody... I have never demanded amendment to
the Koran as it was alleged, but the Sharia (Muslim) law."

There has been no official comment on her homecoming or whereabouts so
far.

Nasreen, driven out of Bangladesh in 1994 by Muslim death threats for
alleged blashphemy, has remained in hiding since her surprise return
home along with her ailing mother, who is said to have just two months
to live.

Her arrival from New York sparked fresh protests by Muslim
fundamentalist groups, but not as widely as in 1994 and newspapers here
have been taking less interest on the issue.

Nasreen, a doctor, left Bangladesh secretly on August 10, 1994 for
Sweden to evade prosecution and death threats from fundamentalist groups
during the regime of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, whose government
charged her with blashphemy in 1994.