On 2 November 2004, the Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh was murdered on his way to work in Amsterdam. His most recent film, Submission: Part 1, with images of a young Muslim woman raped, beaten and flogged, had raised a storm of protests among Holland’s large Muslim community. On his body, his killer had pinned a warning: van Gogh’s scriptwriter and the real author of the film, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, would be the next to die. Hirsi Ali, a Somali in her early thirties, was also a member of parliament for the Liberal Party.

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