Fauzia Ilyas

Fauzia Ilyas (Urdu: فوزیہ الیاس‎, born 1989[1]) is a Dutch Pakistani speaker, political activist, and the president and co-founder of Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan.[2][3][4][5] Ilyas, an open atheist and apostate of Islam, fled from Pakistan after receiving threats to her life and faced potential legal charges for blasphemy in Pakistan. Ilyas received asylum in the Netherlands, where she is now a critic of Islam and campaigner for feminism, secularism, and atheist rights in Pakistan.[3][1][6][2][4]

Fauzia Ilyas
فوزیہ الیاس
Fauzia Ilyas speaking in London in 2017
Born (1989-05-26) 26 May 1989
Pakistan
Nationality
Occupation
  • President and Co-founder of Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan
  • Speaker
  • Political Activist
Years active2012–present
Known forCo-founding Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan
MovementSecular movement

Biography

Youth and arranged marriage

Ilyas was born in 1989 and grew up in a religious Sunni Muslim family in Pakistan.[3][1] At the age of 16, her father announced her arranged marriage with a businessman whom she had never met, and her new husband forced her to wear a veil and sexually abused her.[3][1] Ilyas sought help from her parents, but they refused, giving Islamic excuses for her husband's behaviour.[3][1] After daily unanswered prayers, Ilyas increasingly questioned the existence of Allah and professed her doubts to her husband, who reacted by forcing her out of their home and preventing her from seeing their daughter.[3][1]

Apostasy and escape
Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan Logo

Later, Ilyas met a fellow atheist in Lahore named Sayed Gillani.[3][1] They married and together founded Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan in 2012.[3][1] After failing to keep their identities secret, Ilyas and Gillani faced death threats and charges of blasphemy, which is legally punishable by death in Pakistan.[3][1] In 2015, they fled via Dubai to the Netherlands.[3][1] First, Ilyas arrived in an asylum centre in Den Helder on 30 August, and was joined by Gillani in December after friends helped him fund his escape from Pakistan.[3]

Activism

As of December 2015, the Atheist & Agnostic Alliance of Pakistan had about 3,000 members.[3]

Ilyas featured both in Deeyah Khan's British documentary Islam's Non-Believers (October 2016) and in Dorothée Forma's Dutch documentary Non-believers: Freethinkers on the Run (December 2016).[1]

In January 2017, Ilyas presented her story to the European Parliament with the International Humanist and Ethical Union.[5] In April, she also received the International Atheist of the Year award.[7] Ilyas criticised Facebook for taking down almost all Pakistan-based secular and Islam-critical pages in response to mass flagging campaigns by Islamists. She argued that Facebook should be a platform for freedom of expression, and stop facilitating the Islamist crackdown against so-called "blasphemers".[8]

See also

References
  1. Doldersum, Eline (13 December 2016). "Fauzia nam afstand van de islam: ik zie mijn dochtertje (9) al 5 jaar niet". Vrouw (in Dutch). De Telegraaf. Retrieved 19 August 2017. Het tweetal vlucht via Dubai naar Nederland waar ze nu al een jaar verblijven in een asielzoekerscentrum. [...] Fauzia en Sayed weten te ontkomen, al wordt er wel een aanklacht ingediend bij de politie tegen Fauzia wegens godslastering, afvalligheid en het oprichten van een organisatie voor ongelovige ex-moslims.
  2. Khan, Deeyah (13 October 2016). Islam's Non-Believers. This website [Atheist & Agnostic Alliance Pakistan] was set up in 2011 for atheists in Pakistan, but its founder Fauzia Ilyas faced multiple death threats and was charged with blasphemy.
  3. van Straaten, Floris (21 December 2015). "Toen ik hem het hardst nodig had, was Allah er niet". nrc.nl (in Dutch). NRC Handelsblad. Retrieved 19 August 2017. Het betekende het begin van een jarenlange lijdensweg, die haar van haar islamitische geloof zou doen vallen en voorlopig zou eindigen in een asielzoekerscentrum in Den Helder. [...] Nog datzelfde jaar richtten de twee de Atheists & Agnostics Alliance Pakistan (AAAP) op. [...] In april van dit jaar gebeurde wat Fauzia en Sayed al langer hadden gevreesd: iemand kwam achter Fauzia's identiteit en toog naar de politie om een aanklacht in te dienen wegens blasfemie: hij zei aanstoot te hebben genomen aan haar opvattingen.
  4. "2Doc: Ongelovig - Vrijdenkers op de vlucht". Human (in Dutch). Retrieved 19 August 2017. Samen met haar man Syed richtte Fauzia in Pakistan een vereniging voor atheïsten en agnosten op. Ze kregen te maken met een aanklacht wegens blasfemie.
  5. Κύρκος, M. (12 January 2017). "Η Ύπατη Εκπρόσωπος της ΕΕ, Federica Mogherini, και τα κράτη μέλη πρέπει να εντείνουν τις ενέργειές τους για την προώθηση και την προστασία της ελευθερίας εκδήλωσης όχι μόνο θεϊστικών, αλλά και μη θεϊστικών και αθεϊστικών πεποιθήσεων". European Parliament (in Greek). European Union. Retrieved 19 August 2017. Την έκθεση παρουσίασε ο Διευθυντής του IHEU Bob Churchill, ενώ για τις απειλές θανάτου που έλαβε ως ιδρυτής της αγνωστικιστικής και αθεϊστής συμμαχίας στο Πακιστάν μίλησε η Fauzia Ilyas.
  6. Doldersum, Eline (13 December 2016). "Fauzia moest vluchten omdat ze afstand deed van de islam". De Telegraaf (in Dutch). Retrieved 19 August 2017. Ze verliest haar dochtertje en vriendinnen en wordt door familie met de dood bedreigd.
  7. Nugent, Michael (2 April 2017). "Thank you for the International Atheist of the Year Award 2017". Michael Nugent. Retrieved 21 August 2017. I was honoured to jointly receive the International Atheist of the Year 2017 award, along with Fauzia Ilyas of the Pakistani Atheist Association, at the Polish Days of Atheism in Warsaw this weekend.
  8. Ben van Raaij (14 April 2017). "Pakistaanse student door woedende menigte gelyncht om godslastering". de Volkskrant (in Dutch). Retrieved 12 September 2017.
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