Assisting Atheists in Danger
Introduction
For the last couple of years, the Progressive Atheists’ have been very much focused on assisting and promoting awareness of apostates and blasphemers in Muslim majority countries such as Bangladesh, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Combating Religious Persecution was a major campaign theme for 2015-2016 Progressive Atheists Committee and now for the 2016-2017 Committee.
In 2015, after a number of violent killings in Bangladesh of secular bloggers, we held a conference in Melbourne to publicise the plight of Atheists in Bangladesh and other countries.
The October 2015 conference, ‘Secularism in the Modern World’, featured guest speakers from Bangladesh and Pakistan.
The Progressive Atheists were joined by similar organisations to raise and to send money to assist Atheists on the run from extremist religious organisations.
In August each year we support the reminder of the harms of theocracy with the ‘International Day against State Religion’.
Progressive Atheists have brought the issue of Atheists being persecuted to the attention of Australian politicians and even candidates during election campaigns.
A large part of the Progressive Atheists’ response to the persecution of Atheists is to help those Atheists most in danger.
Some campaigns are those that we have initiated ourselves and other campaigns are those that we have supported that have been initiated by other organisations.
The campaigns have been to:
* Save Atheists who are in prison for their Atheism (some already sentenced to death)
* Save Atheists still in their home country but in danger of being arrested or murdered
* Save Atheists who have escaped to another country but are still in danger
* Save Atheists who have escaped to a safe country but are in danger of being sent back to their home country
News
For more information see:
Progressive Atheists Inc. Annual Report – 1 July 2015 to 30 June 2016
