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Bangladeshi author Nasreen pleads to return home: report
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen has petitioned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to be allowed to return home 15 years after fleeing death threats by Islamic militants, a report said on Wednesday.
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen has petitioned Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina to be allowed to return home 15 years after fleeing death threats by Islamic militants, a report said on Wednesday.
"I wrote a personal letter to Sheikh Hasina requesting her to allow me entry. I do not know whether my sincere plea would yield any result," she told the Bangladeshi weekly Blitz.
Nasreen fled Bangladesh in 1994 to live in exile after extremist Muslims made death threats over her novel "Lajja" (Shame) which depicts the life of a Hindu family persecuted in the Muslim-majority country.
The 45-year-old gynaecologist-turned-author has since lived a peripatetic life, holding Swedish citizenship, and last year took up residence in Paris.
As well as being threatened by militants, Nasreen had also faced a government lawsuit on charges of making blasphemous remarks against the Koran.
Although the Bangldeshi authorities have denied the existence of any official ban on her return, Nasreen's attempts to have her passport renewed have been repeatedly blocked.
Her plea to return follows the landslide election victory of Hasina's secular Awami League in December last year.
