biography
Maryam Namazie is a rights activist, commentator and broadcaster on Iran, the Middle East, women's rights, cultural relativism, secularism, Humanism, religion, Islam and political Islam. She is the Spokesperson of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain; Spokesperson of Equal Rights Now-Organisation against Women's Discrimination in Iran; National Secular Society's 2005 Secularist of the Year award winner and an NSS Honorary Associate; producer of TV International English;Central Committee member of the Worker-communist Party of Iran; and co-editor of WPI Briefing. She is also involved in the Third Camp against US militarism and Islamic terrorism.
She has spoken at numerous conferences and written many articles on women's rights issues, violence against women, political Islam, and secularism - some of which have been translated into various languages.
Previously, Namazie was the elected Executive Director of the International Federation of Iranian Refugee, a refugee run organisation with 60 branches in 15 countries worldwide; founded the Committee for Humanitarian Assistance to Iranian Refugees (CHAIR); was the Human Rights Advocates Training Programme Coordinator at Columbia University's Centre for the Study of Human Rights in New York and the NYC Refugee Coordinator/ US National Steering Committee Member of Amnesty International. She also ran a refugee women's leadership training programme in NYC.
Below is the introduction of Keith Porteous Wood, Executive Director of the National Secular Society, of Maryam Namazie during the Secularist of the Year award ceremony in October 2005.
Maryam Namazie was born in Tehran, but she left Iran with her family in 1980 after the establishment of the Islamic Republic. She then lived in India, the UK and then settled in the US where she began her university studies at the age of 17.
After graduating, Maryam went to the Sudan in to work with Ethiopian refugees. Half way through her stay, an Islamic government took power. She was threatened by the government for establishing a clandestine human rights organisation and had to be evacuated by her employer for her own safety.
Back in the United States, Maryam worked for various refugee and human rights organisations. She established the Committee for Humanitarian Assistance to Iranian Refugees in 1991. In 1994, she went to Turkey and produced a video documentary on the situation of Iranian refugees there.
Soon after her return to the US, she was elected executive director of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees, an international organisation with 60 branches in nearly 20 countries. As director of the refugee-run organisation, she campaigned on behalf of thousands of Iranian asylum seekers and refugees having intervened successfully on many cases preventing. Some successes include preventing the deportation of over 1000 from Holland including having spoken at a parliamentary meeting on the issue; to a successful campaign against the Turkish government to extend the period in which asylum seekers can apply for asylum.
Maryam Namazie has also worked on numerous campaigns, including against stoning, executions, sexual apartheid, and women's rights violations particularly in Islamic societies. Some successes include the Homa Arjomand-led campaign against the Sharia court in Canada. She was a speaker at its first public meeting in Toronto and continued supporting and highlighting the issue and mobilising support.
Other campaigns she has worked on include preventing stonings and executions in Islamist societies, opposing the veiling of children, opposing Sharia or religious laws, defending the banning of religious symbols from schools and public institutions, opposing the incitement to religious hatred bill in the UK and calling for secularism and the de-religionisation of society not only in Iran but in Britain and elsewhere.
Maryam is an inveterate commentator and broadcaster on rights, cultural relativism, secularism, religion, political Islam and many other related topics.
The present revival of Islam has heightened interest in Maryam's work, and at last her writings are gaining a mainstream audience. She has spoken at numerous conferences and written extensively on women's rights issues, particularly violence against women.
More recently, Maryam has been hosting a weekly programme on International TV. This is broadcast via satellite to the Middle East and Europe and can be seen on the Internet. TV International focuses on issues pertaining to the Middle East from a progressive, left-wing perspective. The programme promotes secularism amongst other values and has developed a considerable following amongst people in Iran and the Middle East as well as in Europe and the west.
The issues raised in the programme provoke much correspondence, and she has been roundly criticised by Islamists, the Islamic Republic of Iran and even of Ken Livingstone after his invitation to this country of Yusuf Al Qaradawi.
So she must be doing something right.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are sure you will agree with us that Maryam Namazie is a worthy and noble winner of this first Irwin Prize.
