Born in Somali and raised a Muslim but outraged by her religion’s hostility toward women, Ayaan escaped an arranged marriage and fled to the Netherlands.  There, she learned Dutch, earned a degree and began a career in Dutch politics.  In November 2004, the violent murder of Theo Van Gogh, with whom she had written a film about women and Island called Submission, changed her life.  Threatened by the same group that killed Van Gogh, she has around the clock protection but has not allowed that to compromise her fierce criticism of the treatment of Muslin women, of Islamic government attempts to silence any questioning of their traditions and of Western governments’ blind tolerance of practices in their countries such as genital mutilation and forced marriage of female minors.