Monthly Meetup in London

Monthly Meetups are held on the third Monday of every month, 7-8pm UK time in central London. Meetups are run by Ali Malik.

Gita Sahgal is a writer, journalist, film-maker and rights activist. She is a member of the editorial collective of the journal Feminist Dissent which examines gender, fundamentalism and secularism. She is a Spokesperson for One Law for All and Produced ‘Women Leaving Islam’ for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She was a Founder of Centre for Secular Space which published ‘ The Muslim Right, the Anglo-American Left and Universal Human Rights’ by Meredith Tax. 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 Cage Prisoners. 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.

More than 50 freethinkers from Afghanistan, Algeria, Australia (including Cape Malay), Bangladesh, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, Germany, India, Iran, France, Kenya, Kosovo, Lebanon, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Tunisia, UK, Ukraine, USA and the Diaspora will gather in Oslo during 31 August – 1 September 2024 for Celebrating Dissent Oslo. The two day conference is a continuation of the hugely successful Celebrating Dissent conferences held in London (2014), London (2017), Amsterdam (2019), Cologne (2022) and Paris (2023) in what has become the largest gathering of ex-Muslims across the globe.

Organised in Oslo by the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and Dømmekraft, the event will pay tribute to taboo-breaking ex-Muslim comedian Shabana Rehman and celebrate blasphemy, apostasy and freedom of expression through discussions, poetry, film, protest art, and music.

Contributors: Ahmedur Chowdhury, Aleem (Secular Spirit) , Ali Malik, Ali Rizvi, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Apostate Aladdin, Arnfinn Pettersen, Cemal Knudsen Yucel, Dan Barker, Eirik Løkke, FarAvaz, Fariborz Pooya, Fauzia Ilyas, Halima Salat, Haram Doodles, Ibn Warraq, Ibtissame Betty Lachgar, Infidel Noodle, Inna Shevchenko, Jimmy Bangash, Khadija Khan, Krystel Antoni, Lawrence Krauss, Lisa-Marie Taylor, Mariam Aliyu, Marieme Helie Lucas, Maryam Namazie, Milad Resaeimanesh, Mimzy Vidz, Mohammad Hisham, Morten Guldburg, Mouhammad El Jabbari, Nada Peratovic, Nadia El Fani, Nazmiye Oral, Nina Sankari, Rahila Gupta, Rana Ahmad, Sami Abdallah, Sanal Edamaruku, Sara Nabil, Shakeel Rehman, Shelley Segal, Sohail (Reason on Faith), Stephen Evans, Sylo Taraku, Taha Siddiqui, Veedu Vidz, Victoria Gugenheim, Wissam Charafeddine, Zara Kay and Zehra Pala.

Topics: Creativity and Humour in Challenging Fundamentalisms and Defending Free Expression, Racism, Identity Politics and Free Expression, Laicite as a Cornerstone of Free Expression and Rights, The Ex-Muslims: Canaries in the Coal Mine, Islam’s Nonbelievers: Terror, Trauma, Transformation, Censorship, Offence and Free Speech, Science and Rationality challenging Dogma and Blasphemous Women: Touching the Sacred.

Conference Organisers:

Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain was established in June 2007 to break the taboo that comes with leaving Islam, highlight the plight of ex Muslims, and challenge apostasy and blasphemy laws. CEMB stands against all forms of bigotry and unequivocally defends reason, freedom of conscience and expression, rights and secularism. Over the last 17 years, CEMB has provided assistance to thousands of ex Muslims worldwide, created support groups, solidarity actions and educational materials and helped establish Ex Muslims International. Maryam Namazie, CEMB Spokesperson, has been the instigator behind the international conferences.

Dømmekraft is a secular thinktank established in January 2022. The founders are Morten Guldberg and Lovise Lindtner. The organisation publishes articles, reviews and interviews, and also sets up conferences, debates and other public events to counteract fake news and extremist views and embodies a Humanist outlook, including in support of basic human rights, democracy, equality, freedom of speech and critical thinking.

Conference Sponsors:

Center for Inquiry, Civita, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Fritt Ord, Human-Etisk Forbund, Human-Etisk Forbund Oslo and National Secular Society.

The link to purchase tickets can be found here.

More than 50 freethinkers from Afghanistan, Algeria, Australia (including Cape Malay), Bangladesh, Canada, Croatia, Egypt, Germany, India, Iran, France, Kenya, Kosovo, Lebanon, Morocco, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Sweden, Switzerland, Tanzania, Turkey, Tunisia, UK, Ukraine, USA and the Diaspora will gather in Oslo during 31 August – 1 September 2024 for Celebrating Dissent Oslo. The two day conference is a continuation of the hugely successful Celebrating Dissent conferences held in London (2014), London (2017), Amsterdam (2019), Cologne (2022) and Paris (2023) in what has become the largest gathering of ex-Muslims across the globe.

Organised in Oslo by the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain and Dømmekraft, the event will pay tribute to taboo-breaking ex-Muslim comedian Shabana Rehman and celebrate blasphemy, apostasy and freedom of expression through discussions, poetry, film, protest art, and music.

Contributors: Ahmedur Chowdhury, Aleem (Secular Spirit) , Ali Malik, Ali Rizvi, Annie Laurie Gaylor, Apostate Aladdin, Arnfinn Pettersen, Cemal Knudsen Yucel, Dan Barker, Eirik Løkke, FarAvaz, Fariborz Pooya, Fauzia Ilyas, Halima Salat, Haram Doodles, Ibn Warraq, Ibtissame Betty Lachgar, Infidel Noodle, Inna Shevchenko, Jimmy Bangash, Khadija Khan, Krystel Antoni, Lawrence Krauss, Lisa-Marie Taylor, Mariam Aliyu, Marieme Helie Lucas, Maryam Namazie, Milad Resaeimanesh, Mimzy Vidz, Mohammad Hisham, Morten Guldburg, Mouhammad El Jabbari, Nada Peratovic, Nadia El Fani, Nazmiye Oral, Nina Sankari, Rahila Gupta, Rana Ahmad, Sami Abdallah, Sanal Edamaruku, Sara Nabil, Shakeel Rehman, Shelley Segal, Sohail (Reason on Faith), Stephen Evans, Sylo Taraku, Taha Siddiqui, Veedu Vidz, Victoria Gugenheim, Wissam Charafeddine, Zara Kay and Zehra Pala.

Topics: Creativity and Humour in Challenging Fundamentalisms and Defending Free Expression, Racism, Identity Politics and Free Expression, Laicite as a Cornerstone of Free Expression and Rights, The Ex-Muslims: Canaries in the Coal Mine, Islam’s Nonbelievers: Terror, Trauma, Transformation, Censorship, Offence and Free Speech, Science and Rationality challenging Dogma and Blasphemous Women: Touching the Sacred.

Conference Organisers:

Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain was established in June 2007 to break the taboo that comes with leaving Islam, highlight the plight of ex Muslims, and challenge apostasy and blasphemy laws. CEMB stands against all forms of bigotry and unequivocally defends reason, freedom of conscience and expression, rights and secularism. Over the last 17 years, CEMB has provided assistance to thousands of ex Muslims worldwide, created support groups, solidarity actions and educational materials and helped establish Ex Muslims International. Maryam Namazie, CEMB Spokesperson, has been the instigator behind the international conferences.

Dømmekraft is a secular thinktank established in January 2022. The founders are Morten Guldberg and Lovise Lindtner. The organisation publishes articles, reviews and interviews, and also sets up conferences, debates and other public events to counteract fake news and extremist views and embodies a Humanist outlook, including in support of basic human rights, democracy, equality, freedom of speech and critical thinking.

Conference Sponsors:

Center for Inquiry, Civita, Freedom from Religion Foundation, Fritt Ord, Human-Etisk Forbund, Human-Etisk Forbund Oslo and National Secular Society.

The link to purchase tickets can be found here.

Monthly Meetups are held on the third Monday of every month, 7-8pm UK time in central London. Meetups are run by Ali Malik.

Victoria Gugenheim is an award-winning body painter, artist, and make-up artist, Victoria is also the resident artist for CEMB.

Drawing before she could talk, starting makeup at age 6, progressing to face and bodypainting at 9, Victoria Gugenheim has always had an intense drive to create. Deeply studious and compulsively curious, it is this intense need to understand the world around us that fuels her desire to create beautiful works that provoke a reaction, and make people think. Her drive is to understand why we do what we do, and how we can become more than we are.

Through her questioning of the world and her research into art and our origins, she has become passionate about the necessity of, and merges, art with science. She believes art and science share a common ancestor with the human imagination, and without imagination there can be no hypothesising.  Art is the first visual, material, tangible “What if?” that humanity had, and it started 300,000 years ago deep in the caves near the twin Zambini Rivers of Zimbabwe. There, Homo Heildelbergenesis created the first known art; art on the human body. This was used for rituals, accessing altered states of consciousness, tribal hierarchies, and more besides. The key was its immediate, visceral effect that had the capacity to transform our ancestors into greater versions of themselves. After learning of this, she was hooked on bodypainting and makeup for good.

 Victoria’s art, both mainstream and alternative, has been part of a lifelong quest of both adorning and “de-othering” people through art, public speaking and personal aesthetic choice, and understands that when someone others another human being, it dehumanizes them, objectifies them and makes them a target for everything, from stereotyping at best to at worst, victims of violence, poverty and death; This is most oftentimes caused by fear born of ignorance. Through connecting art, science, visual representations of the self, human rights activism and questioning what we can become both aesthetically and intellectually, Victoria has carved a niche that no other artist to date has dared step into.

Fully committed to living her art, Victoria is not afraid of standing out in the crowd, and encourages others to raise their voices and be heard in a world which cherishes the average over the individual. She believes that only with the realisation of yourself and a willingness to connect with others without othering them, can humanity progress.

Her art ranges from bodypainting, makeup, photography, performances, installations, digital art, clothing design, drawing and painting, merging with science and technology. Never wanting to be limited, she sought out any media necessary to make a concept work- and it is this industriousness that has helped bring her her current success.

Her clients have included Cirque le Soir, Nokia, London Fashion Week, Models of Diversity, Charlotte Church, Alice Cooper’s Halloween Night of Fear, Girls Roc and The World Bodypainting Festival among many others, as well as private commissions that are undertaken with great care, attention to detail and patience. She uses bodypainting as a way of empowering the human spirit, giving the person painted a new found confidence that can be life changing.

Monthly Meetup in London

Monthly Meetups are held on the third Monday of every month, 7-8pm UK time in central London. Meetups are run by Ali Malik.