TASLIMA NASREEN

Born in Bangladesh in 1962 to a Muslim family, Taslima Nasreen gave up a successful career in medicine to protest the way women were being treated in Islamic law.

Stirred up by her experience of the oppression of Bengali women, she spoke out about the oppression of women under Islam. By 1990, her literary activities had enraged the Muslim fundamentalists in Bangladesh, who proclaimed a fatwa and demanded her arrest and execution.

Christened "female Salman Rushdie", Taslima continued her criticism of the Islamic law in her writings. Her novel Lajja (Shame) (1993) described the plight of a Hindu family under attack by Muslim fundamentalists. The novel, which was a best seller in India, was banned in Bangladesh. It also brought a bounty on Taslima's head forcing her to go in to hiding. Thousands of protesters, incited by the Islamic fundamentalists, demanded Taslima's public hanging. The Bangladesh government also charged her with "blasphemy".

At this point, however, several human rights organisations such as PEN and Amnesty International, as well as the European Union, took up her cause.

In August 1994, Taslima escaped Bangladesh and received asylum from the Swedish government. She has changed homes several times since then, living mainly in Europe and the US.

Since 2004, she spent much of her time in Kolkata where she feels at home due to the Bengali language and culture. Currently, she resides in Kolkata and has requested the government for an Indian citizenship.