Dutch women's rights activist says Islam dangerous to women

STRASBOURG, France - Dutch politician and women's rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali on Tuesday said Islam was unfriendly to women and urged Europe not to tolerate religious violence.

"Muslim religion is many things but it's certainly not friendly to women," she said at the European Parliament, warning the West that it "shouldn't indulge in and buy fallacies from Muslims."

Hirsi Ali said violence is the most important obstacle to liberating women and must be eradicated through policies such as positive discrimination and education campaigns.

She also warned domestic violence is on the rise in Europe and proposed setting up a European court and an attorney general to deal with domestic violence cases.

She suggested women should actively fight for their rights and stop being "their own worst enemies."

"Women conceive and give birth to sons, but they don't commit them to the noble cause of defending gender equality," she told a seminar on combating violence against women. "The problem is the inability of women to draw up a plan on how to help women."

Hirsi Ali, known across Europe for fighting for Muslim immigrant women's rights, went into hiding for 10 days following death threats from Islamic fundamentalists after the Nov. 2, 2004, killing of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who had collaborated with her on a film called "Submission."

Hirsi Ali wrote the script for the movie, which criticized the treatment of women under Islam and enraged some Muslims.

Van Gogh was stabbed and shot to death on an Amsterdam street in what was seen as the first terrorist attack by Islamists in the Netherlands.

The killer left an "Open Letter to Hirsi Ali," pinned to the corpse with a knife, threatening that she would "go down" for perceived insults to Islam.

Hirsi Ali, 35, escaped a forced marriage in Somalia as a young adult and fled to the Netherlands, where she became an interpreter for asylum seekers.

After entering politics, she started campaigning for women's rights and against Muslims who reject progressive Dutch values.