Amsterdam
Muslim groups in the Netherlands spoke out this week against a fictional film that portrays Muslim women as oppressed. The 10-minute film, shown on Dutch television, tells the story of Muslim women who are beaten and raped by their husbands, or whipped for having sex. The filmmaker, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is a Muslim and a member of the Dutch Parliament; she fled Somalia at age 23 to escape an arranged marriage. Hirsi Ali said that Muslim violence against women was all too common within the Dutch immigrant community. “Muslims deny it,” she said, “and many Dutch are afraid of taking it on, of causing religious tension, of being called racists.” But Muslim groups said Hirsi Ali was stereotyping Islam for political advantage. “She creates a culture of fear around Islam,” said Ayyub Mohamed Ajoeb of the Muslim Information Center, “by trying to portray it as a backward culture.”
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