In the Media
It's time to take a stand against Islam and Sharia, The Times
Maryam Namazie - top 45 women of the 2007, Elle Quebec
Religion in schools, Teachers TV
Why do we ignore plight of ex-Muslims, Johann Hari, The Independent
A new brand of non-believers, ABC News
Ex-Muslim Committee launch in Holland
On the veil, Islam and political Islam, Icelandic TV
Borders exist to be crossed, Anthony McIntyre for Gallerie
Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain media coverage, June 2007
The courage of their convictions, AC Grayling, june 19, 2007
There is an immense difference between understanding something with one's head, and understanding it with one's guts. Think of the phrase, "the courage of one's convictions". This week the true meaning of these words, hitherto eroded into a flat nap-worn cliche by overuse and misuse, comes home with the force of a kick in the belly. For on Thursday June 21 in London, a group of people are going to take a stand for their principles in a way that involves real courage, admirable courage, and which at the same time lights a torch of hope in a dark quadrant of the world's affairs.
The occasion is the launch of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, following the establishment of such groups elsewhere in Europe, notably Germany and Scandinavia. The British branch is led by the outstanding Maryam Namazie, Iranian-born champion of (among other things) human rights, women, and refugees from religious persecution. The manifesto of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain eloquently speaks for itself, and I hope Maryam Namazie and her fellow-members of the council will not mind if I quote it here in full, because it deserves the widest publicity, not least because the 10 demands appended to it constitute a bill of rights which is absolutely necessary for everyone, non-religious and otherwise, to adopt and observe now that the world is again experiencing, with such bitterness, widespread religion-generated difficulties.
Eye of the STorm
DNA MAgazine, December 2006
MAryam Namazie is voted one of 2006's most intriguing people by the best selling magazine for gay men in Australia.
Women's Right to Equality
The Australian, November 30, 2006
Some women from Muslim backgrounds believe that Islam and women's rights are antithetical. Maryam Namazie, a British-based human rights activist, said recently: "Debating the issue of women's rights in an Islamic context is a prescription for inaction and passivity, in the face of the oppression of millions of women struggling and resisting in Britain, the Middle East and elsewhere. Anywhere they (Islamists) have power, to be a woman is a crime."
Namazie is of the Left. She is the director of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran's International Relations Committee and has been named British secularist of the year. But in general, she notes, the Left, the traditional defender of human rights, is silent about the oppression of Muslim women.
Anger over Khatami
The
Herald, November 1, 2006
Maryam Namazie of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran left the country in 1980, a year after the Islamic revolution and now lives in London. She said: "Khatami should be arrested, not honoured, it is an outrage. Khatami has held positions of power in Iran since Khomeni's days, he represents the regime and is a defender of the supreme spiritual leader and the Islamic Republic."
I know that there are a lot of manifesto buffs who read Comment is free, and the Manifesto of the Third Camp against US Militarism and Islamic Terrorism looks like it deserves a bit more publicity. It seems to me that it is rather a better document than the Euston manifesto for a number of reasons:
1. It is being promoted by people who have some personal stake in the matter: it is specifically aimed at establishing a position against military or economic warfare against Iran, and it is being sponsored by a number of Iranian opposition groups who have a decent claim to speak for Iranian democratic opposition. The UK contact is Maryam Namazie of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran, who won the "Secularist of the Year" award last year for her courageous opposition to Iranian totalitarianism specifically and authoritarian Islam generally.
Islamic 'lifestyle' imposed by force
Letter to the editor, The Independent, 23 jUNE 2006
Sir: Thanks but no thanks. Many of us have fled the Islamic "lifestyle" Dominic Lawson advocates for Britain (Opinion, 20 June). Islamic laws are anything but lifestyle choices. They are imposed by brute force. The penalty for gambling, doing drugs and drinking alcohol is execution under Islamic law and so too is it for having an affair, acts incompatible with chastity, apostasy, blasphemy, and so on. With the rise of the influence of political Islam in the heart of Europe, Mr Lawson should be very careful what he wishes for. MARYAM NAMAZIE LONDON WC1
Profile: Maryam Namazie
The Blanket by
Anthony McIntyre
April 3, 2006
For those who have despaired of Marxism in the face of the cults and sects who hide their reactionary perspectives behind little red flags, Maryam Namazie's position comes as a breath of fresh air. A genuine Marxist committed to universal human emancipation, who measures progress in terms of lives saved and not papers sold, she has tormented oppressors in a way unimaginable to the sectarian ponds of quacking ducks. Her place has been at the coal face where she intends to remain and not amongst the paper sellers of the quack pack.
London's rally for free expression
Evening Standard
Johann HarI
March 31, 2006
Reza’s friend – the great Iranian freedom fighter and feminist Maryam Namazie – immediately took to the podium. She said, “Whilst we may all be sometimes offended by some things, it is religion and the religious that are offended all of the time. They alone seem to have a monopoly on being offended, saying their beliefs are a no go area, and silencing all those who offend.” She began to pass the images of Mohammed around the Square. “Let’s all hold up these images. They can’t arrest all of us!” she declared. Still, Reza has received a summons for disturbing ‘public order’. Is it illegal to mock religion in this country now? If the police are going to be consistent, they should charge me, Peter Tatchell, Maryam and every other person at that rally, now. I await their summons for daring to speak freely at a free speech rally in a free country.
We need to stand up to it!
Transcipt of Interview with Danish TV
March 2006
'The reality is that Islamism is one of the great dangers in the world today and the reaction we have been witnessing around the cartoons is just the tip of the iceberg. The people of the Middle East have been faced with this reactionary movement for over two decades now. It decapitates people, it still stones women to death in the 21st century, and it imposes sexual apartheid wherever it has power and is ruling. The cartoon crisis is just another wake-up call really for the people of Europe about the situation and the need to stand up firmly to this movement.'
Writers issue cartoon row warning
BBC News
Wednesday March 1, 2006
Salman Rushdie is among a dozen writers to have put their names to a statement in a French weekly paper warning against Islamic "totalitarianism".
Face to faith
Giles Fraser
Saturday October 22, 2005
The Guardian
But what resources of self-criticism has atheism developed? Little, it seems. Rarely is a critical lens directed inwards. Once the campaigning atheist has seen the light, they remain on-message, keen to convert all unbelievers. Last week, as Maryam Namazie picked up her award for Secularist of the Year, she proposed "an uncompromising and shamelessly aggressive demand for secularism. Today, more than ever, we are in need of the complete de-religionisation of society."
One woman's war
Nick Cohen
Sunday October 16, 2005
The Observer
Maryam Namazie personifies the gulf between liberal apologists and those who really want equality...
Maryam Namazie Named “Secularist of The Year”
National Secular Society
October 14, 2005
Maryam Namazie, inveterate campaigner for the rights of women and refugees in Islamic countries was named as the winner of the inaugural Irwin Prize for Secularist of the Year last Saturday. Maryam received her prize — a cheque for £5,000, sponsored by Dr Michael Irwin — from Guardian journalist Polly Toynbee at a glittering event in London...
British secularist of the year
Caspar Melville
12 Oct 05
New Humanist
Journalist Polly Toynbee then too the stage, to present the inaugural Irwin Prize to human rights campaigner (and BHA employee) Maryam Namazie. Maraym has been tireless in her opposition to the Iranian government in particular, and Sharia-justified opression of women, for many years, and was a deserved winner.
'Are Muslims Hated?'
Kenan Malik
Channel 4
8 January 2005
Already, Maryam is branded as an Islamophobe for speaking out against the Iranian regime. Now she's worried that the law against religious hatred will make her life even harder.
Maryam Namazie: You have people telling you what you are saying actually in defence of humanity is now racist. But in reality the real reason behind the support for this law is because they want to silence critics but in effect they're gonna use it against me and against people like me who are standing up to the Islamic movement, criticising Islam and the political Islamic movement.
What Hate?
Kenan Malik
The Guardian
7 January 2005
Marayam Namazie is an Iranian refugee who has long campaigned for both women's rights and against Islamic repression. As a result she has been condemned as an Islamophobe, even by anti-racist organisations. 'On the one hand', she says, 'you are threatened by the political Islamic movement with assassination or imprisonment or flogging. And on the other you have so-called progressive people who tell you that what you say in defence of humanity, in defence of equal rights for all, is racist. I think it's nothing short of an outrage.'
Civil World Sees Radical Islam's Evil Side
Sage Commentary
by Donald G. Mashburn
June 21, 2004
These include the likes of Arab women’s rights advocate, Maryam Namazie, who declared, “The 21st Century must be the century that rids itself of political Islam.”
Marching with the right women
By Pamela Bone
March 6, 2004
The Age
Criticising Islam is not racist, writes Maryam Namazie on the Iranian Secular Society website: "An attack on Islamic states and laws is not only permissible but a requisite given the indescribable violence and misogyny meted out by Islam in political power.
"In Iran the number of witnesses required to prove a crime is higher if the witnesses are female. The legal age for girls to marry is nine. Any form of friendship or association between the sexes outside marriage is punishable by flogging, imprisonment, forced marriage and stoning to death. These are not merely a different kind of freedom."
When a scarf is more important than murder
BY YASMIN ALIBHAI-BROWN
The Independent
Feb 16, 2004
As the passionate secularist, the British Iranian Maryam Namazie writes: "If you remove all forms of intimidation by Islamicists, Islamic laws, racism, cultural relativism and ghettoisation by Western governments, the norms that women are not equal to men, very few women would choose the veil."
Fundamentalists Not All the Same
Sage Commentary
Donald G. Mashburn
January 15, 2003
Maryam Namazie, at a conference on “Women in the Middle East,” said, “Women living in Islam-stricken societies and under Islamic laws is the outrage of the 21st Century. Burkah-clad and veiled women and girls [subjected to] beheadings, child sexual abuse in the name of marriage and sexual apartheid are the most brutal aspects of women's third class citizen status in the Middle East.”
"The situation of Afghan refugees is truly an immense human tragedy," says Maryam Namazie, executive director of the London-based International Federation of Iranian Refugees (IFIR).
Tony Jones speaks with Maryam Namazie, the executive director of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees. The International Federation of Iranian Refugees is loudly opposing the planned stoning, and is urging other human rights organisations, unions and regular people, to join in the protest.
