Taslima Nasreen, an award-winning writer, physician, secular humanist and human rights activist, is known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death. In India, Bangladesh and abroad, Nasreen’s fiction, nonfiction, poetry and memoir have topped the best-seller’s list.

Taslima Nasreen was born in Bangladesh. She started writing when she was 13. Her writings won the hearts of people across the border and she landed with the prestigious literary award Ananda from India in 1992. Taslima won The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 1994. She received the Kurt Tucholsky Award from Swedish PEN, the Simone de Beauvoir Award and Human Rights Award from Government of France, Le Prix de l' Edit de Nantes from the city of Nantes, France, Academy prize from the Royal Academy of arts, science and literature from Belgium. She is a Humanist Laureate in The International Academy for Humanism,USA. She won Distinguished Humanist Award from International Humanist and Ethical Union, Free-thought Heroine award from Freedom From Religion foundation, USA., IBKA award, Germany,and Feminist Press Award, USA . She got the UNESCO Madanjeet Singh prize for Promotion of the Tolerance and Non-violence in 2005. She received the Medal of honor of Lyon. She got honorary citizenship from Paris, Nantes, Lyon, Metz, Thionville, Esch etc. Taslima was awarded the Condorcet-Aron Prize at the “Parliament of the French Community of Belgium” in Brussels and Ananda literary award again in 2000.

Bestowed with honorary doctorates from Gent University and UCL in Belgium, and American University of Paris and Paris Diderot University in France, she has addressed gatherings in major venues of the world like the European Parliament, National Assembly of France, Universities of Sorbonne, Oxford, Harvard, Yale, etc. She got fellowships as a research scholar at Harvard and New York Universities. She was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow in the USA in 2009.

Taslima has written 40 books in Bengali, which includes poetry, essays, novels and autobiography series. Her works have been translated in thirty different languages. Some of her books are banned in Bangladesh. Because of her thoughts and ideas she has been banned, blacklisted and banished from Bengal, both from Bangladesh and West Bengal part of India. She has been prevented by the authorities from returning to her country since 1994, and to West Bengal since 2007.

Dear Bill Maher

Dear Bill Maher,
I like you for telling the truth. Not many celebrities are as intelligent and courageous as you. But I think, to get more truth, you should visit India and paint Hindu Goddesses naked like M F Hussain. You would most likely be killed by Hindu fanatics, or you would be imprisoned because of laws against blasphemy. Many cases would be filed against you by Hindus for hurting their religious feelings. It is a punishable crime to hurt people’s religious feelings in the Indian subcontinent and many other countries in the world. And if you speak against Christianity, catholic bishops will put your life in danger. You have to run away to save your life like Sanal Edamaruku. In Europe, ninety-nine individuals were convicted last year by the Maltese Courts for public blasphemy, and 119 were convicted previous year. You know three members of Pussy Riot, Russian Music group were sentenced to two years in prison for staging a performance at the Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. If it were not a church or a cathedral, Pussy Riot members would not be in prison. Dear Bill Maher, why don’t you try to do abortion in some of the states of your country, and see what happens. You know how Christian fundamentalists kill doctors in the name of Christianity. Why don’t you go to Italy just to see how impossible it is to get an abortion?

It is true that Islam is the most rigid, and non-reformed religion in the world and young Muslims get brainwashed to stop their thinking minds and become terrorists. But it is not true that other religions were bad only in the Middle Ages and now they are all good and safe. If Christian/Hindu/Jewish etc. fundamentalists get the opportunities to be terrorists, like Muslim fundamentalists get, they will become as intolerant and dangerous as Muslim terrorists. All religions have the potentials to make terrorists at any time. Even Buddhism, a so called peaceful religion can make terrorists. I hope you know how Buddhists in Myanmar killed and displaced thousands of poor Muslims. No one should forget about anti-Muslim pogrom of Gujarat in 2002. 2000 innocent Muslims were killed by Hindu extremists.

Islam has been used politically more than other religions. If there were no enlightenment era in Europe, most European Christians would have allowed the churches to continue their barbaric inquisition or their crusades against infidels today. Islam has not been given much opportunities to get critical scrutiny like other religions have been given. Muslims have been prevented from going through the enlightenment process other religious communities have been gone through. If the right of ex-Muslim atheists to freedom of expression were not violated, many Muslims would become atheists the way many Christians and Jews became atheists in the West. The problem is, not only foolish Muslim leaders , many clever non-Muslim leaders also want Islam to stay stagnant in the darkness.

You are a visionary man. I am requesting you to broaden your vision a bit.

Humanistically
Taslima

Taslima Nasreen

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