Date: Thu Aug 19 17:27:24 1999 From: FICherry@aol.com Subject: ASHS: another book is banned.
Famed secular humanist and feminist Taslima Nasrin has had her latest book banned in her homeland of Bangladesh. Dr. Nasrin, a Senior Editor of Free Inquiry, has both a fatwa demanding her death and a bounty on her head because she has criticized Islm and its treatment of women. On a more upbeat note, Taslima phoned me last week and was in very good spirits despite the book ban and a broken leg she sustained in a recent fall. An extensive interview with Taslima Nasrin--"One Brave Woman vs. Religious Fundamentalism" --is available at:
http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/nasrin_19_1.html
Secularly,
Matt Cherry
DHAKA, Aug 12 (AFP) - Bangladesh Thursday banned a new book by the exiled feminist writer Taslima Nasreen, the BSS news agency reported.
All copies of "My Childhood Days" have been seized and its import, sale, distribution and preservation have been banned, the agency said, quoting an official statement.
The action was taken on the grounds that it "might hurt existing social system and religious sentiment of the people and can also give birth to adverse reaction in the country," the agency said. The book is published in Calcutta.
The government in 1994 banned her novel entitled "Lajja" (Shame) for alleged blasphemy against Islam and several Moslem fundamentalist groups staged nationwide protests against her. Some demanded she be hanged.
Arrest warrants were issued for her after a Bangladeshi filed a blasphemy charge against her in June that year.
Nasreen, 37, a doctor, writer and women's rights activist, left Bangladesh secretly in August 1994 for Sweden to evade prosecution and death threats from fundamentalist groups. She has been living in Europe and the United States since then.
She returned in Dhaka in September last year to accompany her ailing mother home from New York. But in January, after her mother's death from cancer, she again left for Sweden.