Dhaka, Feb 20: Bangladesh has banned controversial feminist author Taslima Nasrin latest book for allegedly containing "objectionable" comments about Islam and Prophet Mohammad.
The government in a notification issued on Thursday banned the printing, reprinting, sale and stockpiling of the book, Shai Sob Andhakar (Those Dark Days) published last month in West Bengal. The government banned the import, sale and printing of the book in the country because it contains "grave and objectionable comments about Islam and Prophet Mohammad" and "may cause hatred in the society," an official notification said. The exiled author's autobiography was banned on the day it was to be released at the ongoing book fair in Dhaka on the occasion of language day. This is Nasreen's second book, which has been banned by the government in the last four months. The new book is the follow-up volume of the controversial book Ka, which was banned late last year after the country's leading poet Syed Shamsul Haq filed a defamation suit alleging that the book portrayed him in bad light. Nasreen, a physician-turned-writer now in exile, fled Bangladesh in 1994 after Islamic fundamentalists threatened to kill her following publication of her novel Lajja. She is currently researching secularisation and women' emancipation in Islamic countries at Harward University. Bureau Report