Taslima Nasreen’s Residence Permit Extended By One Year Following Twitter Appeal To Amit Shah

The Indian residence permit of Bangladeshi writer and human rights activist Taslima Nasreen has been extended for one more year by the Union Home Ministry, reports PTI. Nasreen is well known for taking on issues of Islamic religion fundamentalism in her works.

Her vocal criticism of certain Islamic practices, and the fact that she highlighted the oppression of Hindus in Bangladesh, led to fatwas being issued against her and she being forced out of her home country.

Nasreen has Swedish citizenship but prefers to live on the sub-continent, choosing to make India her new home. The Indian government has issued to her a residence permit on a continuing basis from 2004 onwards.

On 17 July, she took to Twitter to communicate to Union Home Minister Amit Shah her plight of only getting her residence permit extended by three months.

Nasreen has previously had to face problems during her stay in India; In 2007 she had to leave Kolkata where she had been living under house arrest after an Islamist backlash. Some fatwas even offered unlimited sums of money for her murder.