Over the past few years, Secular Rescue has seen an increasing number of urgent requests for aid and other forms of assistance from threatened atheists—typically ex-Muslims—residing in the northern regions of Africa. This part of the world has seen a resurgence in extremism and anti-atheist violence since the so-called Arab Spring, which began in Tunisia in late …

Jana (an alias) is a twenty-eight-year-old Iraqi ex-Muslim. Like nearly every girl in Iraq, Jana was raised as a Muslim, specifically a Shia. She was forced to adhere to its strictures, teachings, and basic rules—as well as its unwritten ones. Jana followed these beliefs and rules but eventually found her faith waning. She sought to …

Secular Rescue’s mission is predominantly rooted in protecting emboldened atheist activists whose lives have become the targets of extremists because of public or social-media based human rights advocacy. It is relatively easy to spot an activist from a sideliner: nearly all or a majority of activist writing focuses on the inhumanity of hateful intolerance against …

Secular Rescue is a program of the Center for Inquiry that identifies those writers, activists, and everyday citizens in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Iraq who live under the threat of violence and death and provides financial and diplomatic assistance to help them escape to safety. The Center for Inquiry’s international work for free …

Secular Rescue is a program of the Center for Inquiry that identifies those writers, activists, and everyday citizens in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Iraq who live under the threat of violence and death and provides financial and diplomatic assistance to help these them escape to safety. Nur E Emroz Alam “Tonoy” is known in …

Secular Rescue is a program of the Center for Inquiry that identifies those writers, activists, and everyday citizens in countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Iraq who live under the threat of violence and death and provides financial and diplomatic assistance to help these them escape to safety. A woman going by the name of …

What follows is the story of one of the people helped by Secular Rescue, a secular blogger who is going by the pseudonym Himu Brown to protect his identity. Himu tells us in his own words how he came to realize his life was in danger, and how CFI and other nongovernmental organizations helped to …

This is the story of one man, describing in his own words the peril he faced for years as a secular activist in Bangladesh, the danger posed to his family, and how CFI’s Secular Rescue helped him navigate a path to safety. We are withholding his identity for his protection. This has been very slightly …

Because of the nature of CFI’s Secular Rescue program, though we assist secularist writers and activists whose lives are threatened by extremists, it’s not always possible to publicly celebrate its successes. Even after someone has been relocated out of immediate harm’s way, it may be necessary for them to maintain a low profile for the sake …

Through the new Secular Rescue program, the Center for Inquiry has been able to help over a dozen secularist writers and activists escape Bangladesh, where their lives were imperiled by Islamist militants. Too many freethinkers and progressives have already been slaughtered in the streets of Bangladesh, killed by terrorist thugs for their criticism of religion, for …