Taslima Nasrin, also known as Taslima Nasreen, (born 25 August 1962 in Mymensigh , Bangladesh) is a writer.

Taslima Nasrin stands up for equal rights for women and opposes oppression of non-Islamic minorities in Islamic societies, like in her home country Bangladesh.

When Islamic fundamentalists pronounced a fatwa against her and put a price on her head, she was forced to leave her country in 1994; since then she has been living in exile in Europe. In the same year she received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Nasrin once again raised the ire of officials in her native Bangladesh with her new book Utal Hawa Pol (Wild Wind). The government has called for her arrest and banned the publication, sale, distribution and collection of the novel. The Home Ministry claims that it "contains anti-Islam sentiments and statements that could destroy the religious harmony of Bangladesh".

Books by Taslima Nasrin

• Lajja, Shame
• Meyebela: My Bengali Girlhood - A Memoir of Growing Up Female in a Muslim World ISBN 1586420518
• The Game in Reverse: Poems and Essays by Taslima Nasrin
• Utal Hawa Pol

The Council for Secular Humanism has given Nasrin its consistent support. She often writes for the council's magazine Free Inquiry where she also serves as Senior Editor.

Taslima Nasrin is an Honorary Associate of Rationalist International.

External links

• For freedom of expression - by Taslima Nasreen http://www.unesco.org/webworld/points_of_views/nasreen_121199.shtml
• Bulletin # 102 http://www.rationalistinternational.net/archive/en/rationalist_2002/102.htm#3 RATIONALIST INTERNATIONAL article