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Verdonk came under fire for reversing a decision to revoke Hirsi's citizenship. |
THE HAGUE — Even after her decision to move to the US and work for an influential think-tank, controversial Ayaan Hirsi is continuing to cast a pale over the political arena in the Netherlands, with the fate of the government tied to a heated debate on whether she should keep her Dutch citizenship.
The Reformist D66, a key member of the ruling coalition, threatened Thursday, June 29, to bring down the government unless Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk resigns after reversing a decision to revoke Hirsi citizenship, Reuters reported.
"We no longer trust this minister," Lousewies van der Laan, a D66 MP, told a storming session.
"We wait for this government to decide if they choose for this minister or for the cabinet as a whole," she added.
In May, Verdonk said the Somali-born lawmaker would be stripped of her Dutch citizenship for lying about her name, age and refugee status on arrival in the Netherland in 1992.
But after tremendous political pressures, the minister reversed her position, saying scandal-plagued Hirsi could keep her Dutch passport.
The D66 is the smallest party in the ruling coalition with six seats in the 150-member parliament.
Other coalition partners are the CDA (Christian Democrats) with 44 seats and the rightwing Liberal VVD party with 27 seats.
However, if the D66 carries through on its threat, the government would lose its parliamentary majority and could be forced to step down.
Dilemma
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Hirsi, who defines herself as a "dissident of Islam," has lied about her name, age and refugee status to get political asylum. |
The Immigration minister, known for her tough stance on immigration, survived a no-confidence motion during the parliamentary session.
Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende has distanced himself from Verdonk during the debate.
He was expected to hold a meeting with his cabinet to discuss the current row.
Balkenende is caught between a rock and a hard place, especially after VVD ministers threatened to step down if Verdonk is forced to resign.
Verdonk, like Hirsi, is a member of the VVD and was tipped to lead the party before the controversy.
A recent television program interviewed members of Hirsi's family, who said that she had not been forced into an arranged marriage and had had nothing to fear as she alleged to win the asylum status.
Hirsi, who was born in 1969 in Somalia and defines herself as a "dissident of Islam," is expected to take up a job with the Washington-based right-wing think tank the American Enterprise Institute (AEI).
Many members of the AEI, founded in 1943, serve or have served in US President George W. Bush's administration.
She has gained notoriety in the Muslim world for her two-part documentary "Submission," which was dubbed by the Muslim minority as "extremely insulting."
The documentaries are about what the MP says Islam's oppression of women and homosexuality in Islam.
The documentary infuriated the one million Muslims in the European country and led to the November 2004 killing of its director Theo Van Gogh by a Dutch man of Moroccan origin.
The killing, however, was strongly condemned the vast majority of the minority |