Maryam Namazie (Persian: مریم نمازی) (Tehran, 1966) is an Iranian-born secularist and campaigner, commentator and broadcaster. She is Spokesperson for One Law for All and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She also co-hosts Bread and Roses, a weekly television programme broadcast in Iran via satellite TV.
Namazie left with her family in 1980 after the 1979 Iranian Revolution was suppressed by the political Islamic movement. She has subsequently lived in India, the United Kingdom and the United States, where she began her studies at the age of 17.
Right out of university, Namazie worked with Ethiopian refugees in Sudan. During the Islamic coup d’état in that country, her clandestine organization in defense of human rights, Human Rights Without Frontiers, was discovered and she forced to leave the country. Back in the United States in 1991 she became the co-founder of the Committee for Humanitarian Assistance to Iranian Refugees (CHAIR). In 1994 she worked in Iranian refugee camps in Turkey and produced a film about their situation. Namazie was then elected Executive Director of the International Federation of Iranian Refugees with branches in more than twenty countries. Maryam reaches out to defend women’s rights and the struggle against “sexual apartheid” in Iran.
Namazie has not limited her activism for secularism to her country of birth: she has also campaigned in Canada and Britain, where she currently lives. She has, by writing numerous articles and making public statements, focused on challenging cultural relativism and political Islam. These activities were recognized by the National Secular Society with the 2005 Secularist of the Year award, making Namazie its first recipient.
Maryam Namazie is also the spokesperson of Fitnah- Movement for Women’s Liberation, a protest movement which is, according to their website, “demanding freedom, equality, and secularism and calling for an end to misogynist cultural, religious and moral laws and customs, compulsory veiling, sex apartheid, sex trafficking, and violence against women.”
Bread and Roses TV: https://www.youtube.com/user/BreadandRosesTV Web: http://www.maryamnamazie.com/ Blog: http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/MaryamNamazie Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/MaryamNamazie
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