Posts Tagged ‘ Taslima Nasreen ’

Maybe they will, maybe they won’t

Jan 25th, 2017 11:13 am | By

In newer news – the Jaipur Literary Festival says it has not decided not to invite Taslima in future. It’s hedging. It hasn’t decided not to, it hasn’t decided not to not to – it hasn’t decided. Good that it hasn’t, I suppose, but really it shouldn’t be hedging. It should have told the “protesters” to take a hike.

Late on Monday evening, Festival producer Sanjoy Roy said in a statement: “They expressed their anger… I heard them out. Explained we supported minorities in every way. Underscored that we are a platform for all points of view. Agreed that we should consider their request not to reinvite them (Taslima Nasrin and Salman Rushdie).”

This led to speculation on the

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Taslima resists

Jan 25th, 2017 10:56 am | By

India Today has more detail on Taslima and the Jaipur Literary Festival.

After Bangladeshi writer and activist Taslima Nasreen’s impromptu session at the Jaipur Literature Festival drew a minor protest here, festival organisers said they will consider the protestors’ request of not reinviting her, a statement said.

“They expressed their anger…. I heard them out. Explained we supported minorities in every way. Underscored that we are a platform for all points of view. Agreed that we should consider their request not to reinvite them,” Sanjoy K Roy, Producer of JLF, said.

Protesting organisations including Rajasthan Muslim Forum, All India Milli Council, Jamaat-e-Islami and Muslim Personal Law Board, had said yesterday that the writer, who has been living in exile

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But what do you mean by secularism?

Jan 25th, 2017 10:38 am | By

My dear friend Taslima showed up at the Jaipur Literary Festival on Monday, where the Times of India reported she woke things up.

Till Monday, the Jaipur Literature Festival (JLF) was a largely tame affair. And then exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasrin made an impromptu appearance on the last day, immediately drawing protesting Muslim groups outside the venue.

Adding fuel to fire, the controversial author pledged her firm support for the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) and underscored its importance in ensuring gender equality.

Nasrin questioned the secularism of Indian state which was sheltering fanatics who issued fatwas and set a prize for her head.

“Many Muslims do not want UCC but it’s urgently necessary for women’s rights,” said Nasrin,

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The worst form of censorship

Dec 18th, 2016 11:31 am | By

Outlook India talks to Taslima about censorship.

For noted Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who has faced the ire of fundamentalists on several occasions, self-censorship is the worst form of censorship.

With attacks against writers, minority religious leaders, and atheist bloggers on the rise in Bangladesh, Nasreen says many authors have now been forced to resort to self-censorship to avoid facing fatal consequences.

“In our part of the world we have problems regarding freedom of expression. Many people do not speak what they want to. And, most writers in Bangladesh now self-censor themselves. Otherwise they will be hacked to death. But, for me it is the worst form of censorship,” she said.

“Even when I write for newspapers, editors cut

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A place where there is need for her kind of writing

Oct 23rd, 2016 10:50 am | By

Taslima talked to a reporter about life “at home in exile.”

India, Nasrin reiterates, articulating feelings she has expressed often, is “closest to home, to my bhasha, my culture. I relate to this society, feel I belong here”. It’s necessary to her very raison d’etre as a writer. “I am not a writer of romances. I am a socially committed writer; my writing is for freedom of expression, for women’s rights. I cannot live in a place where everything is ideal, where there is freedom of expression, human rights for all. I am a citizen of such a country (Sweden). I have to live near the oppressed, to see them up close, to meet them, a place where there

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Peak

Nov 3rd, 2015 3:59 pm | By

The Ansarullah Bangla Team has put out a new hitlist. Taslima’s name is at the top.

The group reportedly put up a list of 14 names of bloggers and writers on social media on Sunday, which includes several Bangladeshi writers who are now living abroad.

Taslima Nasreen has been living in the United States after threats to her life. She was moved to the US in May this year by the Center for Inquiry (CFI), which had said Nasreen was the ‘next target for murder by Al Qaeda-linked extremists’.

Apart from Nasreen, , other bloggers and writers on the terror hit list are Farjana Kabir Khan and Asif Mohiuddin who are currently in Germany, and Arifur Rahman and 

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Introducing Nirbashito

Jul 15th, 2015 11:42 am | By

Here’s the trailer for Nirbashito.

It’s pretty powerful.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WCzm7zx9ewRead the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Nirbashito

Jul 15th, 2015 11:15 am | By

Finally released in Kolkata and on its way to the Alberta Film Festival is the award-winning Bangladeshi movie Nirbashito, which is based on Taslima. The English title is Banished.

The Times of India last December:

Churni Ganguly’s first directorial venture, Nirbashito, has been adjudged the best film in Delhi International Film Festival.

The script of the film, which is based on the life of banished Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, has Churni playing the role of Tasleema, who, however has no screen name. In the film, the protagonist represents every women, which also tries to explain the tag line that accompanies the title of the film — A woman has no country.

The film, allegorically, tells the story

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



As long as she lives, she will not be silenced

Jun 20th, 2015 5:33 pm | By

This is from April. I didn’t see it then. I’m glad I didn’t – I was freaking out enough as it was. It’s the Daily Mail:

There is no hint of fear in her eyes as feminist writer Taslima Nasreen tells Mail Today that Bangladeshi terror group Ansarullah Bangla Team is plotting to cross over to India and then travel to the Capital to kill her.

The group takes its ideology from Anwar Al-Awlaki, a Yemen-based al-Qaeda activist, and has been involved in the murders of America-based writer Avijit Roy and blogger Washiqur Rahman last month for “criticising Islam”.

Taslima, if Indian intelligence agencies are to be believed, may very well be their next target.

“Members of the Ansarullah

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



CFI gets the job done

Jun 1st, 2015 8:25 am | By

Here is the big news I’ve been sitting on for

  1. weeks
  2. the past several days

It’s a press release from CFI:

Amid Death Threats from Islamists, CFI Brings Secular Activist Taslima Nasrin to Safety in U.S.

Center for Inquiry Establishes New Emergency Fund for Freethought Writers Threatened by Radical Islamists

The Center for Inquiry has established an emergency fund to assist freethought activists whose lives are under threat by Islamic radicals linked to Al Qaeda in countries such as Bangladesh, where three secularist bloggers have been murdered since February. Outspoken human rights activist Taslima Nasrin, specifically named as an imminent target by the same extremists responsible for the murders of Avijit Roy, Washiqur Rahman, and Ananta Bijoy Das, arrived in

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Just a place where people talked

May 6th, 2015 11:55 am | By

A little more from Joseph Anton, which is an encyclopedia of the kind of bad thinking that’s been going on for the past week. It takes place in France, which is fitting, and mentions a beloved friend of mine.

At the first meeting of the so-called “International Parliament of Writers” in Strasbourg he worried about the name, because they were unelected, but the French shrugged and said that in France un parlement was just a place where people talked. He insisted that the statement they were drafting against Islamist terror should include references to Tahar Djaout, Farag Fouda, Aziz Nesin, Ugur Memeu and the newly embattled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen as well as himself. Susan Sontag swept in, embraced

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Nirbashito

May 4th, 2015 5:29 pm | By

There’s a film about Taslima; it won an award. Well we can’t have that, can we.

Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha MP from Basirhat, Idris Ali has termed exiled Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen as a ‘loose charactered woman’ on Sunday.

“Taslima Nasreen is a loose charactered woman who plays the communal card. People who support her, eventually end up spreading communal tension,” said Ali. He also targeted author Salman Rushdie saying, “Rushdie was barred from entering West Bengal as this is a secular state and communal elements like him should be kept at bay.”

The communal card, for heaven’s sake. It’s Idris Ali and people like him who are doing that, not Taslima.

This apart, he lashed out at the

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



Freethought in Bangladesh

Feb 27th, 2015 4:50 pm | By

The BBC Bangladesh World Service talks to Taslima about the murder and about the safety of freethinkers. Her segment starts at about 4:20 but the whole thing is interesting.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=GonrwhSKKHURead the rest

(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



One can imagine the pressure

Dec 29th, 2013 10:26 am | By

Taslima has a guest post by a neuroscientist at MIT, Garga Chatterjee.

Many Bengalis take a lot of pride about Kolkata, as a centre for free thought and artistic expression. Kolkata, the so-called ‘cultural capital’, has demonstrated the increasing emptiness of the epithet, yet again. Taslima Nasreen, one of the most famous Bengali authors alive, had scripted a TV serial named ‘Doohshahobash’ ( Difficult cohabitaions) portraying 3 sisters and their lives – standing up to kinds of unjust behaviour that are everyday realities for the lives of women in the subcontinent. Nasreen has long lent a powerful voice to some of the most private oppressions that women face, often silently. The private channel where the serial was slotted ran a

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)



But suddenly everything is dead. Everybody is silent.

Dec 20th, 2013 12:06 pm | By

Taslima wrote a post about banning and censorship two days ago, when the axing of her serial was threatened but not yet a reality. Go read it and look at it; it’s full of pictures of Taslima on billboards advertising the serial. There was a huge buzz about this serial.

But suddenly everything is dead. Everybody is silent. The channel, the producers, the artists all are shocked.

The police and a bunch of Muslim fanatics both asking the channel to ban my TV serial. The funny thing is that the serial has not started going on air but fanatic Mullahs started claiming that my serial ‘could hurt the sentiments of the community’. Mullahs don’t know about the story of the

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(This is a syndicated post. Read the original at FreeThoughtBlogs.)