Celebrating Dissent 2022

Richard Dawkins (center) and other participants march “In Defense of Salman Rushdie,” who was brutally stabbed at a New York talk.

Victoria Gugenheim stands behind the banner in support and solidarity with Raif Badawi, who is still not allowed to leave his country.

Ensaf Haidar, wife of Saudi blogger Raif Badawi, gives an update on the status of her husband, who was finally freed from prison in March after 11 years, but remains under house arrest.

Shelley Segal plays the guitar during the conference.

Richard Dawkins (at podium) and Mazen Abou Hamdan (far right) both receive a Freethought Champion Award (presented by Sami Abdallah, center) as did Iranian political prisoner and atheist Soheil Arabi in absentia.

Ex-Muslim, Kenyan-Somali poet Halima Salat, now living in the Netherlands, gives a poignant poetry reading.

Algerian secularist Marieme Helie Lucas also received the Freethought Champion Award, speaking on how “Secularism Is a Women’s Issue.”

FFRF Co-President Dan Barker performs on the piano.

Conference co-organizer Maryam Namazie gives the conference’s opening speech.

Celebrating Dissent — a two-day conference and the largest gathering of ex-Muslims, freethinkers and intellectuals championing freedom of thought since the pandemic — took place in Cologne, Germany, on Aug. 20-21, to coincide with International Apostasy Day.

FFRF was proud to be a co-sponsor, and Co-Presidents Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor were participants.

Co-sponsor Maryam Namazie, after citing the brutal Aug. 12 attack on Salman Rushdie, best expressed the conference theme by quoting Chilean poet Pablo Neruda: “You can cut the flowers, but you cannot stop the spring.” Scientist Richard Dawkins, in attendance, described the movement as “one of the most important political movements of our time” and praised it as one of the “decisive forces in defense of freedom of expression worldwide.”

Co-sponsor Sami Abdallah, president of Freethought Lebanon, said: “We stand for ideas and words while they stand for daggers and guns; we stand for humor and satire while they stand for state sponsored incitement to murder . . . We are the future, and they are the past.”

Celebrating Dissent 2022

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