Source: mass emailing
Secularists from the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia and the Diaspora will be gathering at the Tower Hotel in London during 11-12 October 2014 for an historic two-day International Conference on the Religious-Right, Secularism and Civil Rights.
At this unprecedented conference, prominent women and men from countries or the Diaspora as diverse as Algeria, Bangladesh, Canada, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Poland, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, UK, USA and Yemen will discuss "Religion in State, Law and Politics", "Secularism and Education", "Multifaithism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship" and "Women, Religion and the Religious-Right", amongst others.
In addition to over 50 speakers, including those of faith and none, there will be comedy, live music, films and dance as well as a dinner with speakers.
The packed agenda can be seen on the conference's website: www.secularconference.com/agenda/.
With limited space remaining and only 10 days left to the conference, register for this not-to-be-missed event TODAY: www.secularconference.com/registration/.
If you are unable to attend but would like to donate towards bringing secularists from the "South" to the conference, please support our crowdfunding campaign on the Indiegogo Website: www.indiegogo.com/projects/secularism-today-now.
Secularism, today, now.
ENDS
The conference is endorsed by Atheist Alliance International; Bread and Roses TV; Children First Now; Center for Inquiry; Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women's Discrimination in Iran; Fitnah – Movement for Women's Liberation; International Committee against Stoning; International Committee against Execution; International Federation of Iranian Refugees; Iran Solidarity; National Secular Society; One Law for All; Secularism is a Women's Issue; The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science UK; and Women Living Under Muslim Laws amongst others.
Housmans Bookshop will have a bookstall at the event.
Distinguished speakers and acts are:
• AC Grayling is a Philosopher, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts, Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and author and commentator.
• Aliyah Saleem spent 6 years in an Islamic school in Britain and 1 year in Pakistan.
• Amel Grami is Professor at the Tunisian University of Manouba; she was on the frontlines of Manouba's successful struggle to defy a Salafist siege last year and is a leading expert on Religion and Women's Studies.
• Anne Lovett is an acclaimed pianist and composer.
• Bahram Soroush is a social and political analyst and commentator.
• Ben Baz Aziz is a Presenter at Arab Atheist broadcasting and a blogger focusing on LGBT and atheist rights in the Middle East who was imprisoned in Kuwait for blasphemy.
• Caroline Fourest is a French writer, editor of the magazine ProChoix, and author of Frère Tariq, a critical look at the works of Tariq Ramadan and books on topics such as the conservative right, the pro-life movement and the fundamentalist trends in the Abrahamic religions.
• Chris Moos is a secular student activist who has led a successful campaign for the right to wear 'Jesus and Mo' t-shirts after being harassed and threatened with removal at his university. He was a nominee for the NSS' Secularist of the Year 2014 award.
• Chulani Kodikara is a Senior Researcher at the International Center for Ethnic Studies in Sri Lanka and author of 'Muslim Family Law in Sri Lanka: Theory, Practice and Issues of Concern to Women'.
• Daphna Baram, AKA MissD, the Israel-born human rights lawyer gone journalist started performing as a comedian in 2009.
• Dilip Simeon is a labour historian and public intellectual in India. He is Board of Trustees Member of the Aman Trust.
• Elham Manea is a Yemeni associate professor specialized in the Middle East, a writer, and a human rights activist. Her concept of humanistic Islam was first published in a series of articles in Arabic.
• Fariborz Pooya is the founder of the Iranian Secular Society, was one of the founding members of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and is a co-host of Bread and Roses TV.
• Fatou Sow is a Senegalese Sociologist, and a member of a number of African and international associations as well as the International Director of Women Living Under Muslim Laws.
• Gita Sahgal is an Indian-born writer, journalist, film-maker and rights activist, Director of Centre for Secular Space who was suspended by Amnesty International as head of its Gender Unit in 2010 for criticising the organisation's relations with an Islamist group.
• Hamid Taqvaee is Leader of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran's Central Committee and a leading Marxist opposition figure to the Islamic regime of Iran.
• Homa Arjomand is an Iranian–born political activist in Canada running the International Campaign against Sharia Court in Canada and for One Secular School System in Ontario.
• Houzan Mahmoud is a Kurdish women's rights campaigner and the Spokesperson of the Organisations of Women's Freedom in Iraq. She has written and campaigned extensively on women's rights issues.
• Horia Mosadiq has been Director of the Afghanistan Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium and an advisor to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, as well as a journalist in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Imad Iddine Habib is a Moroccan atheist threatened for his atheism, founder of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco, the first public atheist organisation in a country with Islam as the state religion.
• Inna Shevchenko is leader of FEMEN topless activists who was kidnapped and threatened by the Belarus KGB in 2011 for her activism. She was granted political asylum in France.
• Julie Bindel is an English writer, feminist and co-founder of the group Justice for Women. She was listed in the Independent's "Pink List" as one of the top 101 most influential gay and lesbian people in the UK.
• Kacem El Ghazzali is a Moroccan secularist writer, blogger, activist and atheist. He was the head of the Moroccan Center for Human Rights' Youth Chapter and is a member of the Executive Board of the Moroccan Bloggers Association.
• Karima Bennoune is a law professor at the University of California Davis School of Law, and author of "Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism".
• Kate Smurthwaite is a stand-up comedian and political activist. She has appeared on more than 500 TV and radio shows including This Morning, The Big Questions, Woman's Hour and The Moral Maze.
• Kenan Malik is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster, a presenter of BBC Radio 4′s Analysis and a panellist on The Moral Maze. His book From Fatwa to Jihad was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.
• Kiran Opal is a Pakistani-born human rights activist, writer, and editor living in Canada. She is co-founder of Ex-Muslims of North America and Editor of ExMuslimBlogs.
• Layla Saleem spent 6 years in an Islamic school in Britain and now campaigns for secular education.
• LCP is a multimedia and multiethnic dance company which emphasises human rights issues mainly human trafficking.
• Lila Ghobady is an Iranian writer-journalist and documentary filmmaker. Her first independent release, Forbidden Sun Dance, was banned by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• Maha Kamal is an ex-Muslim who was disowned by her parents for leaving Islam, President of the Colorado Prison Law Project, and Commissioner at the Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice's Commission on Inclusiveness.
• Magdulien Abaida is a Libyan Activist and president of Hakki (My Right) Organization for Women Rights. She was kidnapped by Islamists in Benghazi in August 2012 and fled after her release three days later.
• Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist, founder and former International Coordinator of the Women Living Under Muslim Laws. She is also the founder of Secularism Is A Women's Issue.
• Maryam Namazie is Spokesperson for Fitnah, One Law for All and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; editor of Fitnah's Unveiled; and producer and co-host of Bread and Roses.
• Nadia El Fani is a Tunisian filmmaker who risks arrest and up to five years in prison if she returns to Tunisia after Islamists filed a complaint against her film "Neither Allah nor Master".
• Nahla Mahmoud is an environmentalist and human right activist originally from Sudan. She leads the Sudanese Humanists Group and is Spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain.
• Nina Sankari is Vice-President of the Polish Rationalist Association.
• Pervez Hoodbhoy is a Pakistani nuclear physicist and recipient of a number of awards. He is also a prominent environmentalist and social activist.
• Peter Tatchell has been campaigning for rights and global justice since 1967. New Statesman readers voted him sixth on their list of "Heroes of our time". He was Campaigner of the Year in The Observer Ethical Awards.
• Pragna Patel is a founding member of the Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism. She was listed in The Guardian's Top 100 women: activists and campaigners.
• Ramin Forghani is founder of the Ex-Muslims of Scotland and Vice-Chair of the Scottish Secular Society.
• Randa Kassis is President and founder of the Movement for a Pluralistic Society. She was a member of the Syrian National Council until she was excluded for her warnings against Muslim fundamentalists in 2012.
• Rumy Hassan is Senior Lecturer at University of Sussex and author of "Dangerous Liaisons: The Clash between Islamism and Zionism" and "Multiculturalism: Some Inconvenient Truths".
• Salil Tripathi is an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor at Mint and at Caravan in India. He was board member of English PEN from 2009 to 2013, and co-chaired PEN's Writers-at-Risk Committee.
• Sameena Zehra is a comedian and blues singer. She's been called 'a master storyteller'.
• Sanal Edamaruku is an author and founder-president of Rationalist International and the Indian Rationalist Association. In 2012, he was charged with hurting religious sentiments for his role in examining a claimed miracle at a local Catholic Church.
• Safak Pavey is a Turkish MP representing Istanbul for the main opposition social democrat party. She also serves as an United Nations independent human rights expert.
• Shelley Segal is a Melbourne based singer-songwriter involved in secular activism. 'An Atheist Album' is a passionate response to dogmatic belief, inequality, religious oppression and the idea that only the devout can be grateful and good.
• Siba Shakib is an Iranian/German film-maker, writer and political activist. She was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. Her international best-seller Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep has been translated into 27 languages and won a P.E.N. prize.
• Sue Cox is the co-founder of Survivors Voice Europe, an international organisation that has at its heart the support and empowerment of catholic clergy abuse survivors of which she is one.
• Sultana Kamal is a lawyer, human rights activist and Executive Director of Ain o Salish Kendra in Bangladesh.
• Taj Hargey is the Director of Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford and Imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation.
• Tarek Fatah is a Pakistani born Canadian writer, broadcaster and a secular activist. He is the author of "Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State" and founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress.
• Taslima Nasrin is a Bangladeshi-born award-winning writer, physician, and activist, known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death.
• Terry Sanderson is a writer and journalist and current President of the National Secular Society, which campaigns for the separation of church and state.
• Waleed Husseini is a Palestinian blogger arrested in 2010 by the Palestinian Authority for blaspheming against Islam on Facebook and in his blog. He founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France in 2013.
• Yasmin Rehman has worked for more than two decades on violence against women and girls. She was Director of Partnerships and Diversity with the Metropolitan Police Service, and Deputy Association of Chief Police Officer lead for Honour based Violence from 2004-07.
For more information, contact:
Conference Organising Committee: Amal Farah, Atoosa Khatiri, Eileen McFadden, Gaby Grammeno, Huma Irfan, Marieme Helie Lucas and Maryam Namazie
Email: maryamnamazie@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/events/630996160274751/
Twitter: twitter.com/SecularConf
Website: www.secularconference.com
At this unprecedented conference, prominent women and men from countries or the Diaspora as diverse as Algeria, Bangladesh, Canada, Egypt, France, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Morocco, Pakistan, Palestine, Poland, Senegal, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Switzerland, Syria, Turkey, Tunisia, UK, USA and Yemen will discuss "Religion in State, Law and Politics", "Secularism and Education", "Multifaithism, Multiculturalism and Citizenship" and "Women, Religion and the Religious-Right", amongst others.
In addition to over 50 speakers, including those of faith and none, there will be comedy, live music, films and dance as well as a dinner with speakers.
The packed agenda can be seen on the conference's website: www.secularconference.com/agenda/.
With limited space remaining and only 10 days left to the conference, register for this not-to-be-missed event TODAY: www.secularconference.com/registration/.
If you are unable to attend but would like to donate towards bringing secularists from the "South" to the conference, please support our crowdfunding campaign on the Indiegogo Website: www.indiegogo.com/projects/secularism-today-now.
Secularism, today, now.
ENDS
The conference is endorsed by Atheist Alliance International; Bread and Roses TV; Children First Now; Center for Inquiry; Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; Equal Rights Now – Organisation against Women's Discrimination in Iran; Fitnah – Movement for Women's Liberation; International Committee against Stoning; International Committee against Execution; International Federation of Iranian Refugees; Iran Solidarity; National Secular Society; One Law for All; Secularism is a Women's Issue; The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science UK; and Women Living Under Muslim Laws amongst others.
Housmans Bookshop will have a bookstall at the event.
Distinguished speakers and acts are:
• AC Grayling is a Philosopher, Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts, Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society and author and commentator.
• Aliyah Saleem spent 6 years in an Islamic school in Britain and 1 year in Pakistan.
• Amel Grami is Professor at the Tunisian University of Manouba; she was on the frontlines of Manouba's successful struggle to defy a Salafist siege last year and is a leading expert on Religion and Women's Studies.
• Anne Lovett is an acclaimed pianist and composer.
• Bahram Soroush is a social and political analyst and commentator.
• Ben Baz Aziz is a Presenter at Arab Atheist broadcasting and a blogger focusing on LGBT and atheist rights in the Middle East who was imprisoned in Kuwait for blasphemy.
• Caroline Fourest is a French writer, editor of the magazine ProChoix, and author of Frère Tariq, a critical look at the works of Tariq Ramadan and books on topics such as the conservative right, the pro-life movement and the fundamentalist trends in the Abrahamic religions.
• Chris Moos is a secular student activist who has led a successful campaign for the right to wear 'Jesus and Mo' t-shirts after being harassed and threatened with removal at his university. He was a nominee for the NSS' Secularist of the Year 2014 award.
• Chulani Kodikara is a Senior Researcher at the International Center for Ethnic Studies in Sri Lanka and author of 'Muslim Family Law in Sri Lanka: Theory, Practice and Issues of Concern to Women'.
• Daphna Baram, AKA MissD, the Israel-born human rights lawyer gone journalist started performing as a comedian in 2009.
• Dilip Simeon is a labour historian and public intellectual in India. He is Board of Trustees Member of the Aman Trust.
• Elham Manea is a Yemeni associate professor specialized in the Middle East, a writer, and a human rights activist. Her concept of humanistic Islam was first published in a series of articles in Arabic.
• Fariborz Pooya is the founder of the Iranian Secular Society, was one of the founding members of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and is a co-host of Bread and Roses TV.
• Fatou Sow is a Senegalese Sociologist, and a member of a number of African and international associations as well as the International Director of Women Living Under Muslim Laws.
• Gita Sahgal is an Indian-born writer, journalist, film-maker and rights activist, Director of Centre for Secular Space who was suspended by Amnesty International as head of its Gender Unit in 2010 for criticising the organisation's relations with an Islamist group.
• Hamid Taqvaee is Leader of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran's Central Committee and a leading Marxist opposition figure to the Islamic regime of Iran.
• Homa Arjomand is an Iranian–born political activist in Canada running the International Campaign against Sharia Court in Canada and for One Secular School System in Ontario.
• Houzan Mahmoud is a Kurdish women's rights campaigner and the Spokesperson of the Organisations of Women's Freedom in Iraq. She has written and campaigned extensively on women's rights issues.
• Horia Mosadiq has been Director of the Afghanistan Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium and an advisor to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, as well as a journalist in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Imad Iddine Habib is a Moroccan atheist threatened for his atheism, founder of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Morocco, the first public atheist organisation in a country with Islam as the state religion.
• Inna Shevchenko is leader of FEMEN topless activists who was kidnapped and threatened by the Belarus KGB in 2011 for her activism. She was granted political asylum in France.
• Julie Bindel is an English writer, feminist and co-founder of the group Justice for Women. She was listed in the Independent's "Pink List" as one of the top 101 most influential gay and lesbian people in the UK.
• Kacem El Ghazzali is a Moroccan secularist writer, blogger, activist and atheist. He was the head of the Moroccan Center for Human Rights' Youth Chapter and is a member of the Executive Board of the Moroccan Bloggers Association.
• Karima Bennoune is a law professor at the University of California Davis School of Law, and author of "Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism".
• Kate Smurthwaite is a stand-up comedian and political activist. She has appeared on more than 500 TV and radio shows including This Morning, The Big Questions, Woman's Hour and The Moral Maze.
• Kenan Malik is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster, a presenter of BBC Radio 4′s Analysis and a panellist on The Moral Maze. His book From Fatwa to Jihad was shortlisted for the Orwell Prize.
• Kiran Opal is a Pakistani-born human rights activist, writer, and editor living in Canada. She is co-founder of Ex-Muslims of North America and Editor of ExMuslimBlogs.
• Layla Saleem spent 6 years in an Islamic school in Britain and now campaigns for secular education.
• LCP is a multimedia and multiethnic dance company which emphasises human rights issues mainly human trafficking.
• Lila Ghobady is an Iranian writer-journalist and documentary filmmaker. Her first independent release, Forbidden Sun Dance, was banned by the Islamic Republic of Iran.
• Maha Kamal is an ex-Muslim who was disowned by her parents for leaving Islam, President of the Colorado Prison Law Project, and Commissioner at the Colorado Supreme Court Chief Justice's Commission on Inclusiveness.
• Magdulien Abaida is a Libyan Activist and president of Hakki (My Right) Organization for Women Rights. She was kidnapped by Islamists in Benghazi in August 2012 and fled after her release three days later.
• Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist, founder and former International Coordinator of the Women Living Under Muslim Laws. She is also the founder of Secularism Is A Women's Issue.
• Maryam Namazie is Spokesperson for Fitnah, One Law for All and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; editor of Fitnah's Unveiled; and producer and co-host of Bread and Roses.
• Nadia El Fani is a Tunisian filmmaker who risks arrest and up to five years in prison if she returns to Tunisia after Islamists filed a complaint against her film "Neither Allah nor Master".
• Nahla Mahmoud is an environmentalist and human right activist originally from Sudan. She leads the Sudanese Humanists Group and is Spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain.
• Nina Sankari is Vice-President of the Polish Rationalist Association.
• Pervez Hoodbhoy is a Pakistani nuclear physicist and recipient of a number of awards. He is also a prominent environmentalist and social activist.
• Peter Tatchell has been campaigning for rights and global justice since 1967. New Statesman readers voted him sixth on their list of "Heroes of our time". He was Campaigner of the Year in The Observer Ethical Awards.
• Pragna Patel is a founding member of the Southall Black Sisters and Women Against Fundamentalism. She was listed in The Guardian's Top 100 women: activists and campaigners.
• Ramin Forghani is founder of the Ex-Muslims of Scotland and Vice-Chair of the Scottish Secular Society.
• Randa Kassis is President and founder of the Movement for a Pluralistic Society. She was a member of the Syrian National Council until she was excluded for her warnings against Muslim fundamentalists in 2012.
• Rumy Hassan is Senior Lecturer at University of Sussex and author of "Dangerous Liaisons: The Clash between Islamism and Zionism" and "Multiculturalism: Some Inconvenient Truths".
• Salil Tripathi is an award-winning journalist, a contributing editor at Mint and at Caravan in India. He was board member of English PEN from 2009 to 2013, and co-chaired PEN's Writers-at-Risk Committee.
• Sameena Zehra is a comedian and blues singer. She's been called 'a master storyteller'.
• Sanal Edamaruku is an author and founder-president of Rationalist International and the Indian Rationalist Association. In 2012, he was charged with hurting religious sentiments for his role in examining a claimed miracle at a local Catholic Church.
• Safak Pavey is a Turkish MP representing Istanbul for the main opposition social democrat party. She also serves as an United Nations independent human rights expert.
• Shelley Segal is a Melbourne based singer-songwriter involved in secular activism. 'An Atheist Album' is a passionate response to dogmatic belief, inequality, religious oppression and the idea that only the devout can be grateful and good.
• Siba Shakib is an Iranian/German film-maker, writer and political activist. She was born and raised in Tehran, Iran. Her international best-seller Afghanistan, Where God Only Comes to Weep has been translated into 27 languages and won a P.E.N. prize.
• Sue Cox is the co-founder of Survivors Voice Europe, an international organisation that has at its heart the support and empowerment of catholic clergy abuse survivors of which she is one.
• Sultana Kamal is a lawyer, human rights activist and Executive Director of Ain o Salish Kendra in Bangladesh.
• Taj Hargey is the Director of Muslim Educational Centre of Oxford and Imam of the Oxford Islamic Congregation.
• Tarek Fatah is a Pakistani born Canadian writer, broadcaster and a secular activist. He is the author of "Chasing a Mirage: The Tragic Illusion of an Islamic State" and founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress.
• Taslima Nasrin is a Bangladeshi-born award-winning writer, physician, and activist, known for her powerful writings on women oppression and unflinching criticism of religion, despite forced exile and multiple fatwas calling for her death.
• Terry Sanderson is a writer and journalist and current President of the National Secular Society, which campaigns for the separation of church and state.
• Waleed Husseini is a Palestinian blogger arrested in 2010 by the Palestinian Authority for blaspheming against Islam on Facebook and in his blog. He founded the Council of Ex-Muslims of France in 2013.
• Yasmin Rehman has worked for more than two decades on violence against women and girls. She was Director of Partnerships and Diversity with the Metropolitan Police Service, and Deputy Association of Chief Police Officer lead for Honour based Violence from 2004-07.
For more information, contact:
Conference Organising Committee: Amal Farah, Atoosa Khatiri, Eileen McFadden, Gaby Grammeno, Huma Irfan, Marieme Helie Lucas and Maryam Namazie
Email: maryamnamazie@gmail.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/events/630996160274751/
Twitter: twitter.com/SecularConf
Website: www.secularconference.com
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