Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a Somali-born Dutch-American writer, activist and former politician. She is a critic of Islam and advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, opposing forced marriage, honour killing, child marriage, and female genital mutilation.
At the age of five, following local traditions in Somalia, Ali underwent female genital mutilation organized by her grandmother. Her father—a scholar, intellectual, and a devout Muslim—was against the procedure but could not stop it from happening because he was imprisoned by the Communist government of Somalia at the time.
Her family moved across various countries in Africa and the Middle East, and at 23, she received political asylum in the Netherlands, gaining Dutch citizenship five years later. In her early 30s, Hirsi Ali renounced the Islamic faith of her childhood, began identifying as an atheist, and became involved in Dutch centre-right politics, joining the People’s Party for Freedom and Democracy (VVD).
A documentary from the Dutch TV program Zembla with the title The Holy Ayaan reports that she could be deprived of Dutch citizenship because she had given a false name and date of birth when she applied for asylum and had lied about her country of origin. The loss of Dutch citizenship could mean that she would also no longer be a member of parliament. A Supreme Court ruling followed that if incorrect personal details were provided with the naturalisation application, Dutch nationality is deemed not to have been established.
On 15 May 2006, Hirsi Ali announced she is leaving the House of Representatives from 1 September 2006 to work for a US neoconservative think tank, the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research.
After it becomes clear that Dutch MP Ayaan Hirsi Ali decided to step down and move to the United States, the program Foreign Correspondent from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation wants to make a portrait and interview her before her departure.