The APPHG will meet on the subject of the global persecution of the non-religious and will focus on the experiences of survivors and victims before hearing from experts on non-religious persecution. 

Guest speakers include: 

• Gulalai Ismail, a humanist human rights activist, who fled to the US from Pakistan having been arrested, having her passport confiscated, and then having spent a year in hiding. Gulalai has faced repeated blasphemy accusations and death threats, at one stage suing her accusers

• Bonya Ahmed, a humanist blogger and writer who alongside her husband Avijit Roy was attacked by Islamists with machetes in Dhaka. Avijit was murdered and Bonya survived with serious wounds

• Leo Igwe, founder of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, who has challenged humanist, LGBT, and other forms of persecution across West Africa. He will raise the case of Mubarak Bala, President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, who has been imprisoned since April 2020 for blasphemy

• Ahmed Shaheed, the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief

To RSVP please email karen@humanism.org.uk.