Rome, 10 Jan. (AKI) - Italian conservative MP Daniela Santanche has received death threats over her opposition to the Muslim veil, Italy's leading paper Corriere della Sera reported in a front-page article on Wednesday. Santanche reportedly received a letter in Arabic and English at her lower house office Tuesday night with pictures of Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, murdered in 2004 by an Islamist fundamentalist for his movie Submission, which denounced violence on women in Muslim countries, and Dutch MP Hirsi Ali, the film's author, who has also received death threats."This is the hour of my liberation...your time has come," the note said. The message also carried a paragraph from the BBC World website on 23 October, describing Santanche as an MP who "has said the veil is not required by the Koran" and has been described as "an infidel by an imam."
Santanche, a leading member of the right-wing National Alliance Party in Italy's opposition, has been under police escort since late October last year, when her criticism of the Muslim veil led to threats which were considered serious by security officials, including those of Muslim cleric Aby Shwaima, the imam of the mosque of Segrate in Milan and one of the founders of Italy's largest Muslim group UCOII, who slammed her as an "infidel" during a television show on Sky Italia on 20 October.
Shwaima's outrage was sparked by two television interviews given by Santanche in which she had said that the Muslim veil "is not a religious symbol and it is not required by the Koran" and that "it is not a symbol of freedom."
