FYI 2 reports below
Harsh Kapoor

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The Daily Star (Dhaka)
October 14, 2002
http://www.dailystarnews.com/200210/14/n2101406.htm#BODY3

Taslima Nasrin gets jail term for 'Lajja'

Staff Correspondent
Controversial feminist writer Taslima Nasrin has been given one
year's prison term for her derogatory comments on Islam in several of
her books including 'Lajja.'

Magistrate Shah Alam delivered the verdict in absentia in a Gopalganj
court on Saturday for 'hurting religious sentiment of the Muslims'.

It followed a suit filed by one Dabiruddin Azad in 1999, accusing
Taslima of writing 'offensive comments' about Islam.

This is first sentence against the writer who is living abroad since
fleeing Bangladesh eight years back in the face of death threats by
some religious extremists.

Appearing before the trial court, she can now appeal before higher
court against the verdict.

Taslima, now in Sweden, came to Bangladesh in 1998 to see her ailing
mother but left after her mother's death.

She had been in India recently in connection with publication of her
latest book 'Wild Wind' (Utol Hawa in Bengali). The 'Wild Wind' and
two of her earlier written books -- 'Shame' (Lajja) and 'My
Childhood' (Amaar Meyebela) -- are banned in Bangladesh.


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The Telegraph (Calcutta)
Monday, October 14, 2002
http://www.telegraphindia.com/1021014/asp/foreign/story_1290376.asp

Taslima sentenced to a year in jail

Dhaka, Oct. 13 (PTI): Controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima
Nasreen has been sentenced to one year imprisonment by a court for
casting aspersions on Islam, a media report said today.

A court in Gopalganj sentenced the self-exiled writer yesterday for
hurting religious feelings in her books, including Lajja (Shame), the
daily Ittefaq reported.

Nasreen, 40, who has drawn flak from Islamists for her writings, was
sentenced to jail by magistrate Shah Alam if she returns to
Bangladesh, three years after the case was filed by one Dabiruddin
Azad.

The physician-turned-writer fled Bangladesh in the early nineties
after her novel Lajja, which described persecution of Hindu community
by Bangladesh¹s Muslim majority, triggered protests by Islamists and
was banned. She has since been staying in India and Europe. Her
latest novel Utal Hawa (Gusty Wind), was also banned this year. She
was living in Calcutta till last month.

Taslima is the second Bangladeshi writer forced to live in exile to
avoid harassment and repression. Daud Haider, a renowned poet had to
leave Bangladesh in the early seventies during the Sheikh Mujib¹s
rule in a similar situation when fundamentalist launched a movement
for his alleged blasphemous comments.

Haider now lives in Germany.

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