Paris opens door to Bangladeshi author fleeing Islamist threats

The award-winning feminist writer Taslima Nasreen, who is under death-threat from Islamist extremists, is to be housed in an artist's studio paid for by the city of Paris, more than a decade after she was forced into exile from her native Bangladesh.

Nasreen's outspoken stance on what she calls the inherent misogyny of conservative Muslim society in Bangladesh has sparked protests, riots and warrants for her arrest as well as a cash reward for her decapitation by religious fundamentalists.

In 1994, the former doctor was accused of blasphemy over her novel Lajja (Shame), which described the life of a Hindu family persecuted in Muslim-majority Bangladesh. The book was banned for offending Muslim religious sentiments.