February 2025 Meeting Review: Atheist Alliance International (AAI)

By Kazi Ahmed Habib

Speakers:

• Tonoy Emroz Alam — President of Atheist Alliance International (AAI), an ex-Muslim atheist Bangladeshi who currently resides in Germany as a refugee.
• Onur Romano — Development Director of AAI and an ex-Muslim from Turkey who resides in Canada as an Asylee.

Tonoy starts off the meeting with a brief introduction of the AAI and the current state of security for atheists internationally. AAI is a publicly funded non-governmental organization with 72 member organizations from around the globe. They are focused on combatting discrimination, criminalization and other injustices committed against atheists and secular activists. They are also responsible for support programs that aim to rescue atheists at risk in their own countries such as the Atheist Support Network.

Tonoy goes on to report the numerous success stories of AAI, such as the rescue of Umar Farouk in Nigeria, who was sentenced in court due to blasphemy charges; Shahadat Russell, who is an outspoken atheist filmmaker in Bangladesh; and a Yemeni ex-Muslim YouTube content creator named Ahmed Aref, who resides in Netherlands. Details of these cases can be found in the AAI Annual Report. Another notable initiative taken by AAI is the funding of 4 humanist and humanitarian schools in Uganda where 1400 children are currently enrolled. Other concerns addressed by Tonoy include women’s right of inheritance in Islamic countries and advocating for grant programs in developing countries at the 2024 Bluewater Atheists Humanists and Agnostics Conference (BAHA Con).

In the final parts of his segment, Tonoy shares a remark made by Donald Trump regarding his belief that a 29-million-dollar fund granted to Bangladesh through USAID to strengthen the political landscape went on to be misused by a firm with only 2 people. After a brief explanation of the term “Geopolitics” and how it was used by colonial imperialists to justify their control over poor countries, Tonoy asserts that Bangladesh deserves a secular nation. The growth and progress made in improving Bangladesh’s GDP was gone. This was caused by the decrease of women in the workforce who are held back due to terrorism from Islamists. In his closing statements, Tonoy urges the crowd to raise concerns with the U.S. government regarding the political climate and poverty in Bangladesh.

Following Tonoy’s segment, we are introduced to another board member of AAI — Onur Romano who was live from Inuit territory in Canada where he was granted asylum. In his introduction, we learn that he was responsible for establishing the first atheist magazine in the Middle East called “The Atheist Magazine,” and was a founding member of the first legally recognized atheist organization in countries like Turkey, Georgia, and Azerbaijan called “Association of Atheism” that was inspired by the AAI.

He is a director of the Atheist Refugee Assistance Program (ARAP) in Turkey, which is led by the AAI in conjunction with the Center for Inquiry. Some of the roles of this program are to provide legal aid, housing, mental health guidance, and job placement for atheist refugees and asylum seekers who face persecution in developing countries with their primary focus being on the large number of non-Turkish refugees harbored in Turkey. This program has a low (19%) acceptance rate and provides limited or no financial support for seekers but works in collaboration with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) to provide evidence of persecution from secondary sources due to the high number of fraudulent cases. ARAP also employs Turkish immigration case managers who are able to verify whether the applicants’ beliefs and identity align with the identity they’ve declared themselves to be on legal documents. ARAP agencies have moved to Canada due to the Turkish governments’ favoritism towards the Muslim Brotherhood. Onur goes on to display images of ARAP safehouses in Turkey and with this his segment comes to an end.

In the Q&A session following the presentation, we learned of the extensive verification process for the Apostacy Assistance Program which requires that applicants undergo a live interview, are outspoken advocates, have no contradictions in their narratives, agree to have their social media accounts investigated and have blasphemy charges against them.

Recent changes in U.S. policy and the travel bans have left U.S. military allies in Afghanistan such as translators and defectors abandoned. Humanitarian visa holders sponsored by Welcome Corps were cancelled during the Trump administration though they were legally accepted into the United States. In the closing announcements, Tonoy informs us of how to be more involved through the AAI website.

For my personal closing statement, I wanted to mention that as an ex-Muslim atheist Bangladeshi myself, I recognize that Tonoy has taken a brave stance in going against the grain of traditional Bangladeshi society for which it is common to face humiliation and lack of empathy. People who share his background truly appreciate the sense of support and security brought about by his presence and unrelenting advocacy.