Atheist Refugee Relief

Islamist terrorism has dominated the headlines in the European media for many years. The attacks in the Bataclan, in Brussels, at Charlie Hebdo, to name but a few. They show the cruel face of religious extremism. All these attacks were committed by Sunni Muslims, who were incited on the Internet by the ideas of the Islamic State, or in mosques by corresponding sermons. What is forgotten here is that the same extremism also exists on the part of Shiite Muslims. We remember the death fatwa which was pronounced against the British author Salman Rushdie in 1989. Even the well-known musician Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) supported these threats. Rushdie had to go into hiding for many years. After the attack of the USA on Iraq a Shiite militia has formed there, which represents similar extreme views as the Sunni IS. Only the strategy they are pursuing is different.

I meet the well-known atheistic blogger Worood Zuhair in a café in a German city. She had contacted me because the death threats against her became more and more intense. We, the Atheist Refugee Relief, have been accompanying the young woman since her arrival in Germany. She comes from Karbala in Iraq, the holy city of the Shiites. There she had already turned away from Islam after realizing that all the atrocities committed by the Islamic State in the name of Islam were also committed by the Prophet Mohammed. This led to even greater tensions within her family, so that one day she was beaten up  by her own brother into an incomplete spinal paralysis. In 2015 she fled via Turkey to Europe. Since then, she has been campaigning on the Internet for women’s rights, especially in Iraq. She blames Islam, which is cementing patriarchal structures and justifying injustices, for the backwardness of her region.

Zuhair shows me her WhatsApp messages she had received lately. It’s a flood of insults. They are predominantly sexually degrading and extremely misogynistic. What is striking about this news is that there is repeated reference to a man named Mohammed Mandalawi, nickname Bunea. Quote: “I will tell my friend Mohammed Bunea, who is in Germany, to kick you in your rotten c***”.

Mohammed Mandalawi is the leader of the newly founded rocker gang “Al-Salam 313” in Essen, Germany. The 313 refers to the 313 companions of Iman Al-Mahdi. The logo of the rocker gang is a white dove. This is also the symbol of the paramilitary unit “Jaish al-Mahdi”, which is said to have provided death squads in Iraq. The “Jaish al-Mahdi”, or “peace brigades”, are under the control of the influential spiritual politician Al-Sadr. They have military training and were involved in the attacks against ISIS in Mossul. When one of Al-Sadr’s representatives, Muhammed Talakani, visited Germany, Mohammed Mandalawi had himself photographed with him several times at private joint activities.

Worood Zuhair says “Muhammed Talakani is a religious agitator. Shortly after he spoke about the sinful behavior of Iraqi blogger Tara Fares in a public speech, she was shot.” Zuhair now finds herself confronted here in Germany with the same groups she fled from back in Iraq. Groups that know only one answer to criticism of Islam. Those who reject Western culture. She now fears that there will be a similar retaliation against her as there was against Tara Fares.

Zuhair’s fears are entirely justified. On the one side, a young woman who has only the word and fights on the Internet for more freedom and against the deprivation of women’s rights in Islamic culture. On the other side, an armed militia, linked in politics, highly armed and trained militarily.

Early Sunday afternoon, 28.04.2019, frightened Rany E. entered the ambulance in Bremerhaven. In addition to wounds on his upper arm, he also had a strongly swollen ankle joint, so that he could only move with a limp. He was attacked with an iron rod. This was only one of the last cases of attacks against atheistic ex-Muslims in German camps.

People whom we support in Germany are repeatedly attacked by other fellow refugees. Thus only last week a mother of four children was beaten by other residents because she ate a sausage with pork meat. Also in the past we received reports from men who were burned or whose mobile phones were destroyed. These are just the highlights of the martyrdom of harassment and abuse to which these people are subjected on a daily basis.

Women are often seen as sexual prey. Apart from the day-to-day harassment that women have to resist, we have also often been told of sexual assaults in the camps.

Rany E. says he is very worried whether he is safe in Germany. He has fled from the very people with whom he has to live here. The Atheist Refugee Relief demands that atheistic ex-Muslims be accommodated with non-Muslims. They are not safe in a normal camp – especially not in the now beginning Ramadan.

Abdl Akadd Abdulrahman has had a long odyssey. One and a half years ago, the young man from Syria publicly outed himself as gay. He posted a video on Facebook, which exposed him to hostility and threats. As a result, he requested that his residence requirement (Wohnsitzauflage, a german legeslation, that requires refugees to stay in a certain for three years) be moved to a city in another region. When the trial dragged on, he had to run away and was forced to violate the residence requirement for security reasons. After moving back and forth for months because he couldn’t rent his own apartment in another region, the residence requirement was finally completely abolished after he emphatically pointed out his precarious situation in the Foreigners’ Office.

According to the Atheis Refugee Relief another procedure must be found with regard to the residence requirement. We support the residence requirement as an instrument to help integration, but in the case of a group that is also subject to persecution here, the residence requirement must be abolished without replacement for these persons, which is also legally possible. In addition, those affected, most of whom are secular and humanist thinkers, have no problem integrating here, as they particularly share our values of freedom.

When Yahya Ekhou began the day in his room in northern Germany on the morning of March 1, he had no idea what wave of hatred had come over him on the Internet. Many people demanded his death. Among them was a representative of parliament. The reason for these extreme reactions was a post from Mr Ekhou. There he asked, referring to the train accident that happened in Cairo on 27 February 2019, why a God could do such a horrible thing to so many believers.
Since it cannot be excluded that he will also be attacked here in Germany, the Säkulare Flüchtlingshilfe e.V. informed the local police. The police then sent officers to him for inquiry.

Mr. Ekhou has been known to the Secular Refugee Aid e.V. for a long time as a committed fighter for freedom and human rights. He also participated in the panel discussion  “Islam and Human Rights – different cultures, same problems?”.

As his application for asylum was rejected, he is currently in the revision process. However, these latest developments once again show why atheists cannot be sent back to their home countries, where they are exposed without protection to Islamic legislation, which often provides for the death penalty for turning away from Islam.

In October 2018 the passport of blogger Sherif Gaber was confiscated at an Egyptian airport. He can no longer leave the country. He has also been charged with blasphemy.

Please share this video!
(The video has English subtitles)

“ – After many months of trying everything, I decided to make this video. In it, I share many details about my situation and why it’s more complicated than many people think. I also couldn’t share some other more important details because of how dangerous it will be.For example, all the details about booking the flights with the names of the hotels and the ticket numbers that I’ve booked. Such details will reveal a lot of info that some people can track me with. Also, things that happened to me while being interrogated and while in prison but I couldn’t share it. But if one day I left Egypt, I’ll talk about all this publicly with evidence so that you understand more about this country and why I had to leave.

“ – Some of you who have contacted me in the past few months know how much I’ve tried and know how unpleasant it is for me to make this video. I already know how hard it’s to get that money and how almost impossible for a country to give me citizenship while I’m in here but I’m doing this for me. I can’t give up now. There’s so much in this life that’s worth living for.

“ – I never asked to share, comment or even like any of my videos. But this time I need that. Every support I get and every share gets me closer to freedom.

“Please share this video.

“Thank you”

The Saudi citizen Rahad Alkunun wanted to flee from a forced marriage to Australia. On her flight there, she was prevented from continuing her journey in Bangkok, Thailand. Representatives of the Saudi and Kuwaiti embassies intercepted her in the transit area, where she said they confiscated her passport. Human rights organisations were alarmed and prevented Ms Alkunun from being repatriated for the time being.

The Atheist Refugee Relief has long emphasized the special danger situation of people who want to leave theocratic systems. So these affected people are never really safe. It can happen at any time that a family member commits a so-called “honour murder” against them, also in Germany. For example, we advocate that when ex-Muslim asylum seekers are recognised, a ban on information is automatically imposed and that a residence requirement is waived, according to which fugitives and recognised asylum seekers must be resident in a certain region for three years. This would make it difficult for persecutors to track them down in countries like Germany.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/07/saudi-woman-fleeing-family-wont-be-deported-say-thai-officials

Speech by Zineb El Rhazoui, a Moroccan-born Frenchwoman and editor at the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. Now she is under police protection in France. She owes her life to the fact that she was not in the editorial office on the day of the assassination.

On 16.11.2018 the Atheist Refugee Relief e.V. organized a panel discussion entitled “Islam and human rights – different countries, the same problems?” on the occasion of the Secular Week of Human Rights in Berlin. Four guests from four very different countries were invited, but all of them were influenced by Islam. Alia Khannum from Pakistan, Shuruq from Saudi Arabia, Yahya Ekhou from Mauritania, Mahmudul Haque Munshi from Bangladesh told their stories about how they turned away from Islam and how society reacted with incredible violence every time. Moderator Angelika Kalwass confessed that when she became familiar with the topic in preparation for the evening, she felt overwhelmed by the force of what she had heard. In addition, the Islam critic Hamed Abdel Samad was invited, who pointed out that we in Europe must not offer any space to this culture of intolerance and must defend our civil liberties. He said that the European Parliament should make it more difficult to criticise Islam on the pretext of suppressing hate speech. At the end of the event, Mina Ahadi, President of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims, recalled the dangers of a political Islam with regard to her own history.

The occasion of the event was the experience of the Atheist Refugee Relief e.V. with refugees who had left Islam. Although they came from many parts of the world, the reaction of the institutions of their home countries and especially of their personal environment was always very similar. We also had to experience that it was often the family pressure that moved people to flee. Religious ideology penetrates into the last areas of private life and controls individuals, especially women, in every detail of their lives. This is what we wanted to address, because the public debate often does not address the influence of religion and instead the cause is to be found in the respective culture.

+++ UPDATE: The three sisters are now safe! Many thanks to all who helped!!!

The three sisters Manal, Muna and Nauf have left Islam and are now on the run. They are being persecuted by their family and are currently in great danger because apostasy (leaving the religion) is punishable by death in Saudi Arabia. It is also a great shame for families there, especially when it comes to daughters, and it is therefore very important for their families to take the girls back to Saudi Arabia and bring them to the punishment.

Therefore we ask for your support. The three sisters must leave their current location as soon as possible, but they have no financial resources. Please donate to GoFundMe so they can go to a safe region.