Atheist Refugee Relief

A man sings a song that sounds similar to the religious chants that were also heard in IS videos. He is filming himself with his cell phone as he walks down a street in Baghdad where a demonstration had recently taken place. The demonstration was brutally suppressed. Thick smoke rises to the sky and car tires are still burning. But the man sings no religious song. He sings: “Oh world, I come to you to tell you that this is not a religious revolution, but a humanist revolution. They shot at us with guns and artillery, but the Enlightenment follows us revolutionaries.”
One of the triggers of the riots is the bad labor situation in the country. But this time, unlike in the past, according to the newspaper Al-Bayina Al-Jadida, there were no slogans or banners to be seen.  People no longer seem to follow the old religious or political groups. They seem to be looking for new ways beyond these.

The Islamic world is changing. After a long period of religious fundamentalism, the group of young people who long for a modern, enlightened society is growing. For example, in “The Arab world in seven charts: Are Arabs turning their backs on religion”, the BBC noted that atheism is spreading in the Islamic world. Atheist Refugee Relief is also experiencing a steady increase of 150% in requests from nonreligious people throughout the Islamic world in this year alone. Given this, it seems strange that so much consideration is given to religion in the integration process in Germany. Young people in the Middle East are already a lot ahead.

A man sings a song that sounds similar to the religious chants that were also heard in IS videos. He is filming himself with his cell phone as he walks down a street in Baghdad where a demonstration had recently taken place. The demonstration was brutally suppressed. Thick smoke rises to the sky and car tires are still burning. But the man sings no religious song. He sings: “Oh world, I come to you to tell you that this is not a religious revolution, but a humanist revolution. They shot at us with guns and artillery, but the Enlightenment follows us revolutionaries.”
One of the triggers of the riots is the bad labor situation in the country. But this time, unlike in the past, according to the newspaper Al-Bayina Al-Jadida, there were no slogans or banners to be seen.  People no longer seem to follow the old religious or political groups. They seem to be looking for new ways beyond these.

The Islamic world is changing. After a long period of religious fundamentalism, the group of young people who long for a modern, enlightened society is growing. For example, in “The Arab world in seven charts: Are Arabs turning their backs on religion”, the BBC noted that atheism is spreading in the Islamic world. Atheist Refugee Relief is also experiencing a steady increase of 150% in requests from nonreligious people throughout the Islamic world in this year alone. Given this, it seems strange that so much consideration is given to religion in the integration process in Germany. Young people in the Middle East are already a lot ahead.

Even in non-Muslim countries threats and violence against ex-Muslims are unfortunately not uncommon. A recent case from northern Germany bears witness to this.

Flensburg. The confessed ex-Muslim and secular activist Amed Sherwan just came out of a house entrance when he was hit on the head and feet from behind and was beaten and kicked lying on the floor. This incident took place in broad daylight in the presence of numerous people in the center of Flensburg. After the police and ambulance were alerted quickly, the worst could be averted.
This was preceded by an argument between the perpetrator and Sherwan two days earlier at a street festival in the idyllic port city. The perpetrator had obviously recognized Sherwan and at first only verbally attacked him. When Sherwan pulled his mobile phone out of his pocket shortly afterwards to take pictures at the party, the perpetrator again insulted Sherwan and accused him of having taken a picture of his wife. The woman spat at Sherwan and the man threatened Sherwan. Two days later he then carried out the threat. Continue reading “Violence against ex-Muslim on open street in Flensburg”

It is 13 July 2019 when Aida (name changed) calls me and says: “Facebook has blocked my page again. I don’t have access anymore”. It is now already the twentieth time that this happened to her. This time it’s about the accusation of hate speech and nudity. The entire Facebook page is now no longer accessible. Not even for her. Everything is gone. All her work, the critical discussions with the subscribers. Everything lost.

Many bloggers who are critical of Islam and the misanthropic culture in their home countries are like her. They stand up for the rights of women, homosexuals, atheists or other minorities who have to live in constant fear in this social system. They also fight for the modernisation of their home countries and the banishment of religion from public life and above all from the state.

Aida fights mainly for feminism and against religion. She displays the violence that society in Islamic countries is using against women on Facebook and has thus achieved growing popularity in the Arab community. She is part of a liberal network that discusses on Facebook how to improve the situation in the home countries. Her site was an important part of it. She had about 7000 followers and the number grew every day.

All this is now taken off the net because a post was reported as hate speech. There were also reports of nudity being displayed. Triggers were pictures of a child who was exposed to massive violence by the family. Aida had published it to point out that this child is not protected from this abuse by the Iraqi state. She herself knows the everyday nature of violence against children from her own experience. She still suffers from the consequences today. In her home country, the right of parents to their children is seen as more important than the rights of children. Aida mainly blames religion for this.

What followed this post was something all too familiar to all critical bloggers. There follows a wave of reports to Facebook. These described her post as “hate speech”, “inciting the people” or “immorality (Nudity)”. When a certain amount of reports are made, the facebook page is automatically blocked. This method is very effective. Even well-known sites like Atheist Republic have been exposed to such actions.

But who is behind these Islamist networks?

It’s mostly Islamists like in this case Abdullah A., who is supposed to work for the Iraqi embassy in India, who incite these reports. He has 21.000 followers on Facebook and has therefore a big influence. The 20-year-old talks openly about “his army”. He called through this channel to block the side of Aida. What followed were over 600 reports to Facebook – the site was completely blocked because complaints about other posts had already been received before. When the page was off the net, you could see on Mr. A.’s page how they congratulated each other that another critic was silenced.

This story happens every day with many critics. It is an unequal struggle. Because when Aida had received threats over Facebook and she reported them, she got as a reply that it wouldn’t violate the Facebook guidelines. Maybe it was only because she submitted the complaint on her own and could not activate an “army”.

We are excited to announce our collaboration with the Brighter Brains Institute! More and more secular organizations are recognizing the need to make a contribution to the accomplishment of social tasks through humanitarian commitment. Because it is a problem that the emergency in certain regions of the world is used to spread religious dogma.

A particularly impressive example of this work is the “Humanists Global” project by the Brighter Brains Institute in San Francisco, USA. They provide concrete help in the form of microcredits, donations in kind and medical aid in many Asian and African countries. “Humanists Global” has even founded four humanist-oriented kindergartens and two schools. There is also cooperation with other atheistic organisations for the construction of hospitals.

The aim of all these efforts, apart from helping to alleviate acute need, is to counteract the devastating effects of religious practices in the regions. We of the Atheist Refugee Relief consider this work very important in order to improve the lives of the people in these countries. But financial aid connot be  as important as opening the mind to rational thinking and humanistic values of tolerance.

All the more we are very happy that “Humanists Global” will cooperate with the Atheist Refugee Relief to improve the situation of people who are free of faith.

On 20.06.2019 the European Humanist Federation invited the Atheist Refugee Relief to the EU Parliament to a meeting with the headline “Are you a true humanist”. Together with two other humanistic organisations (humanism.org.uk and humanistischverbond.nl) we were able to point out the special situation of non-religious refugees. Representatives of the Dutch government and the European EASO were also present.

The Atheist Refugee Relief described the special situation of atheists with a muslim background seeking asylum in Germany. Stefan Paintner illustrated by examples the methods how critics in Europe are silenced very effectively, like the shadowing of Saudi refugees by Saudi authorities or the activities of islamic shiite militia (e.g. the biker gang “Al Salam 313”, which was recently brought into focus by the police with a large-scale raid). Only very few people dared to speak under these circumstances and they needed special protection.

Furthermore, he also made concrete demands regarding the procedure. For example, a trusted person of the refugee should be allowed to be present during the asylum interview in order to check the correct communication of what has been said. It had often been the case that essential contents of the asylum interviews had not been translated correctly or left out completely. Furthermore, the residence restriction imposed on non-religious asylum seekers in Germany should be dropped completely, as this would greatly increase the safety of those affected.

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.