The Netherlands' immigration minister yesterday came under pressure from parliament to justify her decision to strip a high-profile critic of Islam of her Dutch citizenship.

Rita Verdonk bowed to MPs' demands to reconsider her action on Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who plans to move to the US after admitting that she lied in her Dutch asylum application.

Ms Verdonk, known as "Iron Rita" for her tough stance on immigration, said she would consider a new citizenship request by Ms Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born Dutch politician who received death threats for her criticism of Islam.

Ms Hirsi Ali quit her seat in the Dutch parliament on Tuesday and said that she would leave the Netherlands.

She has been offered a post at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington-based neoconservative think-tank with close ties to the Bush administration.

The affair has triggered widespread debate in the Netherlands. The mood varies between support for Ms Verdonk's hardline immigration policy and criticism of her for the decision on Ms Ali, who some people see as a champion of free speech.

A poll on Tuesday showed the Dutch were divided on whether Ms Verdonk was right to strip Ms Hirsi Ali of citizenship, with 49 per cent in favour and 43 per cent against, Reuters reported.

Ms Hirsi Ali, who was raised as a Muslim, lives under police guard after receiving threats from radical Islamists, including the murderer of film director Theo van Gogh.

She gained worldwide notoriety after working with Van Gogh on the film Submission, which criticised Islam's treatment of women

Ms Hirsi Ali admitted that she had lied about her age and name when she cameto Netherlands in 1992 but said she did so to stopher family finding her after she fled an arranged marriage in Canada.