On February 28, 2007, the "Central Council of Ex-Muslims" was presented in the House of the Federal Press Conference in Berlin with its campaign "We Abandoned". A few weeks later, the founding of the "Council of Ex-Muslims" followed in Great Britain.
It was the beginning of an international movement that has changed the world and will continue to change it.
To mark the 10th anniversary of ex-Muslims, a ceremony will be held on 17 November in Cologne with many international guests.
Ten years ago, the word "ex-Muslim" was still largely unknown. Authors such as Ibn Warraq, who had explicitly renounced Islam, were referred to in the media as "Muslim intellectuals". This has changed with the creation of the "Central Council of ex-Muslims": If you enter today the search term "ex-Muslim" on Google, you will come across more than 3 million hits. And the English version of Wikipedia lists as many as 16 organizations created around the world on the model of the German Central Council of Ex-Muslims (ZdE).
Ceremony with many international guests in Cologne:
To celebrate the success story of the ex-Muslims and their courageous commitment to the validity of human rights, the Giordano Bruno Foundation, which was instrumental in the emergence of the ex-Muslim movement, together with the ZdE Germany invites to a ceremony in Cologne. Alongside Mina Ahadi, the chairman of the "Central Council of Ex-Muslims", and Maryam Namazie, the chairman of the "Council of Ex-Muslims" in the UK, will participate in the festival program many exciting guests, including. the Iranian musician, singer and poet Shahin Najafi, to whom a bounty of 100,000 euros has been exposed in Iran and about whom a multi-award-winning documentary film will be screened in German cinemas in October ("When God Sleeps"); the secular bloggers Ahmed Nadir and Kacem El Ghazzali, who were threatened with death for their commitment to freedom of expression in Bangladesh and Morocco respectively; ex-muslim Rana Ahmad, whose escape from Saudi Arabia via Turkey to Germany moved hundreds of thousands and whose autobiography will appear in January 2018 at "Random House"; as well as the two humanistic book authors Philipp Möller ("Isch geh Schulhof", "Bin isch Freak, oda was?", "Gottlos glücklich") and Michael Schmidt-Salomon ("No power the stupid", "Hope man", "The borders the tolerance "). In addition, celebrity guests are expected to attend the ceremony.