Spain revokes asylum status of anti-Islam filmmaker

The Interior Ministry has decided to revoke the asylum status of Imran Firasat, a Pakistani national living in Spain since 2010 who on December 14 announced his intention to release a video in which, among other things, he asks whether Mohammed "was a child molester and a murderer."

Spanish authorities contacted those in the USA to alert them over Firasat's association with Terry Jones, the Florida pastor who excited the rage of the Islamic world when he laid out his plans to burn copies of the Koran and circulate a video of the event.

A Madrid court banned the release of Firasat's inflammatory work and elected to rescind his asylum status on grounds of a threat to the security of the state. Firasat can appeal the decision but if it is upheld by the judge, he will have to leave the country. The governments of Belgium, France and the US had expressed their concern over the ramifications the release of the video could produce. Belgium raised its security alert level after Firasat announced his intention to upload it to the internet. He had already released a trailer filmed in Madrid's Plaza de Colón with the Spanish flag in full view.

Firasat, who describes himself as an "ex-Muslim," has a weighty police record including an Indonesian warrant for kidnap and murder and has been arrested in Spain for alleged involvement in a robbery. In interviews Firasat has claimed that he is being persecuted for his religious ideology and has said that he has received several death threats. He believes that Islam should be made illegal.