Central Council of Ex-Muslims

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Central Council of Ex-Muslims
(ZdE)
logo
legal form Registered association
founding January 21, 2007
Seat Cologne
purpose Representation of people from Islam averted have
Chair Mina Ahadi and Nazanin Borumand
Website exmuslime.com

The Central Council of Ex-Muslims and Other Non-Religious People V. ( Central Council of Ex-Muslims or ZdE for short ) is an association founded on January 21, 2007 in Cologne of non-religious, secularly thinking people who were either of Muslim faith or who come from a Muslim country.

Foundation and goals

The ten founding members include the Iranian communist and women's rights activist Mina Ahadi (as chairwoman), who was sentenced to death in her home country in 1981, the publicist Arzu Toker (until September 2007 deputy chairwoman) and Nur Gabbari , the son of an Iraqi clergyman. Alongside Mina Ahadi, the chairperson has been Nazanin Borumand (pseudonym), who emigrated from Tehran to Hamburg at the age of 19 after the Islamic revolution in 1985, since 2011 . According to the statutes, anyone who recognizes the goals of the association can become a member, regardless of whether they were once a Muslim, come from a Muslim country or have no connections to Islam. However, members of the latter group can only become extraordinary members.

The founding of the association represents a breach of taboo, as Islam does not provide for a renunciation of faith ( apostasy ) and is threatened with the death penalty (in some countries this threat of punishment still applies today). The choice of the name is also provocative, as it alludes to the Central Council of Muslims in Germany , which represents around 20,000 out of more than three million Muslims in Germany, and whose name in turn is based on the Central Council of Jews in Germany .

In an interview with Spiegel, chairwoman Ahadi said:

“The [Islamic] associations [in Germany] act as if they speak for everyone - and in some cases they are recognized as such by the German side. [...] We have to take a stand against it and say: Not in our name. [...] We are secular humanists. We want to give these people a voice. [...] We stand up for human rights. [...] We want to create a new movement, also in other European countries. [...] We want to create a counterpoint to the Muslim organizations. "

- Der Spiegel from February 26, 2007

The Central Council of Ex-Muslims published details of its goals at a press conference in the Federal Press Conference room on February 28, 2007. The campaign “We have forsaken!” Was also started here, which followed the campaign of the women's movement “ We have aborted! “Alludes. Among other things, through this campaign - led by the philosopher Michael Schmidt-Salomon - ideas of the Enlightenment should reach Islam.

The “Secular Islam” initiative of the Islam critic Ibn Warraq , who is one of the signatories of the Manifesto of the 12 and publisher of the book Leaving Islam, has similar goals . Apostates speak out is.

The Central Council of Ex-Muslims is supported by the Giordano Bruno Foundation , the International Association of Non-Denominational and Atheists (IBKA), the Association for Freedom of the Mind in Bavaria and the Humanist Press Service (HPD). The Critical Islam Conference is a joint project of the Central Council and the Giordano Bruno Foundation.

Constitutional Protection Reports

In its reports for 2010 and 2011, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution lists, among other things, the “Central Council of Ex-Muslims” as an “environmental organization” of the Worker-Communist Party of Iran . The BfV speaks of a suspected case, which means that “there are sufficiently weighty indications for the suspicion of extremist endeavors”, but the “actual indications with regard to a group of persons do not yet justify an assessment as extremist”.

Reactions abroad

Since the founding of the German Central Council, similar organizations have emerged in other Western European countries with a notable Muslim minority - including the Centralrådet ex-Muslimer i Scandinavia and the Council of ex-Muslims of Britain . The goals are comparable to those of the German Central Council, such as the demand to reduce the influence of political Islam.

On February 25, 2010 the founding of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims in Austria was announced. The association's co-founders, who come from Bosnian, Turkish and Iranian immigrant families, aim to educate Muslims, including the fact that headscarves and minarets are elitist symbols of Islam and that there is strong anti-Semitism among Muslims, often disguised as criticism of Israel . On November 7, 2011, co-founder Cahit Kaya announced the dissolution of the Central Council of Ex-Muslims in Austria and the establishment of an Ex-Muslim Initiative .

Circumcision debate

During the debate on religiously motivated circumcision of boys that began as a result of a ruling by the Cologne Regional Court on May 7, 2012 , the Austrian initiative Ex-Muslims launched an online campaign on June 28, 2012 against “religious mutilation in places” of children.

The German Central Council of Ex-Muslims also described the circumcision of children as "child abuse under a religious pretext".

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ex-Muslims against the Islamization of the West , Der Tagesspiegel, June 17, 2015
  2. ^ Statutes of the ZdE, § 5 .
  3. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of February 13, 2007.
  4. ^ Nazanin Borumand spoke in Berlin, Humanistischer Pressedienst, March 1, 2010
  5. ↑ Interview with Michael Schmidt-Salomon in the Humanist Press Service ( Memento from October 21, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  6. ↑ verassungsschutz.de (PDF; 4.3 MB) VS report 2010, p. 323 ff
  7. ↑ verassungsschutz.de (PDF; 6.0 MB) VS report 2011, p. 366
  8. ↑ Centralrådet ex-muslimer i Scandinavia (CRES) ( Memento from August 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Maryam Namazie: Launch of the Council of ex-Muslims of Britain. June 19, 2007, accessed February 23, 2011 .
  10. ↑ Irene Brickner / Tobias Müller: Ex-Muslims demand the right to not believe. In: derStandard.at. November 22, 2010, accessed February 23, 2011 .
  11. ↑ Cahit Kaya: The Central Council of Ex-Muslims becomes the "Initiative Ex-Muslims". In: exmuslime.at. November 7, 2011, archived from the original on April 25, 2013 ; accessed on September 23, 2015 .
  12. ↑ “Stay away from my dick” ( Memento from May 2, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Cahit Kaya, July 12, 2012
  13. ↑ Mina Ahadi: Child abuse under a religious pretext , press release of the ZdE, July 16, 2012