Ayaan Hirsi Ali takes her case to European Parliament

Spurned by her own adoptive country and left to her own defenses by the US government, Ayaan Hirsi Ali now finds herself asking the EU parliament to pay for her protection.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been in Brussels to plead for political backing for a controversial proposal to get the EU to pay for her protection.

She was invited by French Socialist MEPs, who launched the initiative to set up a special fund for the former Dutch Parliamentarian who has received death threats because of her critical views of Islam.

"Today I find myself in the embarrassing position that I have to come to ask for help," she told the European Parliament. "I need you to support this fund to protect people like me whose only crime is free speech."

Ms Hirsi Ali has been living under police protection since the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh in 2004, with whom she made a film about Islam's treatment of women. A note targeting her by name was found on van Gogh's body.

How pathetic is it that not one western nation (or group of them) who claim to value and be defenders of free speech, can protect one brave soul who actually stands for those values?