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Under withering criticism, the Dutch immigration minister has agreed to rethink her threat to revoke the citizenship of a Somali-born former lawmaker known for her opposition to fundamentalist Islam.
Minister Rita Verdonk said she acted on the basis of a television program that aired last week in which Ayaan Hirsi Ali admitted lying about her name and age on her asylum application when she fled to the Netherlands in 1992 to escape an arranged marriage.
Hirsi Ali has become one of the best-known figures in the country. She has lived under police protection since a film she wrote criticizing the treatment of women under Islam provoked the murder of its director, Theo van Gogh, by an Islamic radical.
Hirsi Ali resigned from parliament Tuesday, saying in a sometimes teary voice it would be impossible for her to function as a politician while fighting a legal battle over her immigration status.
The threat to strip Ayaan Hirsi Ali of Dutch citizenship unleashed a fierce debate in parliament at a time of heightened anti-immigrant sentiment in the country. Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said he was "surprised by the speed" with which Verdonk acted and asked her for an explanation.
Verdonk said Monday that under Dutch law, Hirsi Ali's naturalization is automatically void since she lied to get it. But she said a day later that Hirsi Ali would retain an immigrant visa, and would be eligible to reapply for citizenship.
At the end of a parliament debate that lasted far into the early hours of Wednesday morning, Verdonk agreed to two motions, one to reconsider her first decision, and another to reprocess Hirsi Ali's naturalization as quickly as possible if necessary.
"I've agreed with the parliament that I'll look at it. I have six weeks time now that I've taken my position and Ayaan has time to react," she said.
Some politicians questioned Verdonk's motives.
Verdonk, from the libertarian VVD Party, is locked in a neck-and-neck race for her party's leadership in next year's general election. She has built her reputation on taking a hard line in immigration cases, and is popular with Dutch who say they are fed up with crime and the perceived failure of Muslim immigrants to integrate with the rest of Dutch society.
Femke Halsema, leader of the Green Left party, said she didn't believe Verdonk was previously unaware Hirsi Ali had lied about her name, given that Hirsi Ali has said so publicly dozens of times in interviews and even on the first page of a 2002 book of essays.
Hirsi Ali has declined to say what she will do next, or confirm reports she will go work for the American Enterprise Institute.
But the conservative think-tank's president, Christopher DeMuth, said in an open letter Tuesday he was "looking forward to welcoming you to AEI, and to America."
Dutch media also reported that U.S. Ambassador Roland Arnall had met with Hirsi Ali to tell her the United States will accept her regardless of her Dutch immigration status. The U.S. Embassy in The Hague declined to comment.
Hirsi Ali said Tuesday that she would continue to voice criticism of fundamentalist Islam and that she plans to make a sequel to "Submission," the film that led to Van Gogh's murder in November 2004.
"Submission" was a fictional study of women suffering abuse in Muslim households, and used scenes of near-naked women with texts from the Quran written on their flesh, which many Muslims found deeply offensive.
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