Events

Join us for our monthly meet-up to explore identity politics, racism and liberation with Gita Sahgal and Maryam Namazie. Meet-ups are run by Ali Malik. Talk will be followed by Q&A.

You can click on this link to view it live.

Gita Sahgal is a writer, journalist, film-maker and rights activist. She is currently Founder and Director of Centre for Secular Space. She was formerly Head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International; she was suspended in 2010 after she was quoted criticising Amnesty for its high-profile associations with the Islamist Moazzam Begg, the director of a group called Cageprisoners. For many years she served on the board of Southall Black Sisters and was a founder of Women Against Fundamentalism and Awaaz: South Asia Watch. With Nira Yival Davis, she edited “Refusing Holy Orders: Women and Fundamentalism in Britain” (London, 1992). Among her articles are “Legislating Utopia? Violence Against Women, Identities and Interventions” in “The Situated Politics of Belonging”. During the 1980s, she worked for a Black current affairs programme called “Bandung File” on Channel 4 TV. She made two films about the Rushdie affair, “Hullaballoo Over Satanic Verses” and “Struggle or Submission”. She has also made two programmes for Dispatches Channel 4, “The Provoked Wife” on the case of Kiranjit Ahluwalia and “The War Crimes File”, an investigation into allegations of war crimes, committed by members of the Jamaat i Islami in Bangladesh in 1971.

Maryam Namazie is Co-Spokesperson for One Law for All, the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and Fitnah. She hosts a weekly television programme called Bread and Roses. She is on the International Advisory Board of the Raif Badawi Foundation for Freedom; National Secular Society Honorary Associate; a Patron of London Black Atheists and Pink Triangle Trust; International Advisory Board Member of Feminist Dissent and a columnist for The Freethinker. The Islamic regime of Iran’s media outlets has called Namazie immoral and corrupt and did an ‘exposé’ on her entitled “Meet this anti-religion woman.” Maryam was a character in DV8 Physical Theatre’s Can We Talk About This?, which deals with freedom of speech, censorship and Islam. She was awarded the 2017 Henry H. Zumach Freedom From Religious Fundamentalism award; 2016 International Secularism (Laicite) Prize from the Comité Laïcité République and was honoured by the National Secular Society for her campaigning work defending free speech at universities (2016) despite attempts at barring her by Student Unions or Islamic Society efforts to intimidate her and cancel her talks. She was also awarded Atheist of the Year by Kazimierz Lyszczynski (2014); Journalist of the Year at the Dods Women in Public Life Awards (2013); selected one of the top 45 women of the year by Elle magazine Quebec (2007); one of 2006′s most intriguing people by DNA, awarded the National Secular Society’s Secularist of the Year Award (2005), amongst others.

Join us for our monthly support group, to talk about issues that still affect us after leaving Islam.

If you would like to come along, please email exmuslimcouncil@gmail.com for details of virtual support group meeting.

Five person 90 minute support group sessions are led by Savin Bapir Tardy. Larger 15 group sessions are led by Marwa Wain.

A larger support group led by ex-Muslim Marwa Wain. Marwa is an ACCPH accredited Counsellor and Psychology certified Life Coach. She specialises in Anxiety, Depression and Relationship issues. For the past three years has worked alongside the lead psychotherapist in managing individual and group therapy for the Grenfell fire survivors. She is a member within the Domestic Violence Forum for the East London area and part of the counselling committee for East London schools. Marwa also has a wealth of experience working with ex-Muslims and the struggles they face.

A small, five-person support group led by Savin Bapir Tardy. Savin is a Counselling Psychologist and conducted her doctoral research at City University into the experience of traumatic events. Savin has worked with adolescents, adults and older adults in a variety of mental health settings, including ex-Muslims and victims of domestic violence, ‘honour’ based violence, forced marriage and female genital mutilation.

15 September, 7-8:30pm, Central London, few minutes walk from Kings Cross station

Join us for our monthly meet-up with Writer and Activist Rahila Gupta on Political Blackness. Meet-ups are run by Ali Malik.

Rahila Gupta is a freelance journalist and writer. Her work has appeared in The Guardian and New Humanist among other papers and magazines. Her books include, “Enslaved: The New British Slavery”; “From Homebreakers to Jailbreakers: Southall Black Sisters”; “Provoked”; and “Don’t Wake Me: The Ballad of Nihal Armstrong” (Playdead Press, 2013). She is co-authoring a book with Beatrix Campbell with the title “Why Doesn’t Patriarchy Die?” She is also patron of Peace in Kurdistan, on the management committee of Southall Black Sisters, chair of the Nihal Armstrong Trust which she set up in 2004 in memory of her dearly loved, disabled son who died in 2001, a judge on the Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize awarded to individual women and groups who have campaigned, raised awareness of and supported women escaping violence, amongst others.

If it is your first time attending the monthly meet-up, please email hello@ex-muslim.org.uk to register.

Talk will be followed by Q&A, drinks and snacks.

20 October, 7-8:30pm, Central London, few minutes walk from Kings Cross station

Join us for our monthly meet-up on Apostasy and Asylum with Ana Gonzalez. Meet-ups are run by Ali Malik.

Ana Gonzalez is a solicitor and partner at Wilson Solicitors. She practises in immigration and asylum work, and has interests in human rights and European Law. Ana is an internationally recognised expert in gender and sexuality-based asylum claims as well as having extensive expertise in representing individuals from vulnerable, marginalised client groups such as victims of human trafficking, apostates and transgender individuals. Ana is frequently instructed by Local Authorities all over the Greater London area to act for children and adults in their care.

Ana is praised in Chambers and Partners for her “constant attention to cases, leading client care and real knowledge of the law.” She “continues to stand out for significant work on human trafficking cases, often raising new country guidance points” (2012). “She is a stand-out practitioner in the field of refugee law, with particular expertise in trafficking cases” (2014). She “is very experienced, passionate and has very good judgement” (2016). Ana has been described “the epitome of a fighter who cares very deeply about her clients,” in the 2019 edition.

She practises in all aspects of immigration and asylum work, and has a specialist interest in European law. Ana has extensive experience of litigating in the higher courts, having had numerous cases over the years in the Administrative Court/Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal. She has also conducted cases in the Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the European Union in Luxembourg.

If it is your first time attending the monthly meet-up, please email hello@ex-muslim.org.uk to register.

Talks will be followed by Q&A, drinks and snacks. Ana will also do one on one sessions with asylum cases.