Help a Driven Young Man Travel Safely from Afghanistan to Europe to Support His Family and pursue his dreams. #1
[ 3 minutes to read] For his safety, we will use ‘Aryan’ as his name in this story. Aryan is…
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Help Georgina, an intersex refugee from Egypt, survive – #1
[ 2 minutes to read] Freethinkers around the world can help Georgina survive with life support of $ 600 per month…
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Empowering New Beginnings: Invest in a Refugee’s Business Today!
[ 2 minutes to read] Introducing “Investing in Hope”: Helping Refugees Start Their Own Businesses In the midst of adversity, resilience…
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Update on Mira: hard life in Egypt – #3
[ < 1 minute to read] Mira is a transgender woman who fled from Yemen to Egypt in search of safety. Two…
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Can we help these freethinker asylum seekers help start their own business?
[ < 1 minute to read] When you don’t get support from a government as a refugee, surviving is hard without sponsors. A small business can help them survive.
In the shadows of ongoing displacement crises in regions like Afghanistan, Iran, Uganda, Sudan, Somalia, and Yemen, Freethinkers International is spearheading a transformative concept. Traditionally dependent on the lengthy and uncertain asylum processes in neighboring countries, asylum seekers face not just a lack of safety but also a life of dependency. Our initiative aims to change this narrative by funding small businesses to foster sustainable empowerment.Asylum seekers often find themselves in precarious situations, such as trans individuals from Yemen facing years of limbo in Egypt, or Afghans in Turkey with slim chances of formal asylum approval. Yet, amidst these challenges lies a potent solution: entrepreneurship. With a starting investment ranging from $500 to $1,000, these brave souls can launch small businesses, turning their skills and passions into sources of sustainable income.
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Join the Fight: Help Ahmed, a Brave LGBTQ+ Activist from Uganda, Reunite with His Children
[ 9 minutes to read] As an LGBTQ activist in Uganda, Elijah has been tortured and sexually abused by the police, persecuted bij family members. His shop and house have been set on fire and he had to flee the country leaving his adorable children behind. He is in a Rwandan hospital now, where he can not leave if he doesn t pay the bills. Elijah wishes to embrace once again his two little children. He needs your help to get the medications he needs and safely return to his home.
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Unconditional Surrender: My Defeat in Debates with Secularists
[ 2 minutes to read] For many years, I held firm to my conservative Sunni Muslim beliefs, staunchly defending them against…
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Mira’s troublesome escape from Yemen brought her to a big unknown city where her pursuit of freedom begins. – #2
[ 2 minutes to read] Episode 2, where Mira was captured and beaten by the police, prevented from traveling but found…
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LGBTQ member Mira, is in danger in her hometown in Yemen. Help her when she moves to a safer place abroad. – #1
[ 3 minutes to read] LGBTQ member Mira, is in danger in her hometown in Yemen. Help her when she moves to a safer place abroad.
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Leaving Bangladesh was the first hurdle for Shadhin, finding ways to stay safe elsewhere is the second.
[ 5 minutes to read] “I get constant threats from the jihadis on the phone/social media. I’m hiding from them all these years. What if they get to know my location because those people whom we used to trust are even against us now. I’m sick of dealing with them already. I can’t take all these stresses anymore. It has been ongoing for five years now. I am living without freedom and peace and I need to leave this place as soon as possible.”
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The story of Amir – fighting against diabetes, homophobia and Islamic radicalism in Yemen #1
[ 2 minutes to read] Deserted by his family, jobless and fighting against diabetes, Amir needs support to find a safe…
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Blasphemy in Bangladesh – The story of Sagor
[ 3 minutes to read] December 2023 – Freedom of expression is a fundamental human right, enshrined in article 19 of…
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Personal letter from Dolly, an LGBTQ-activist from Egypt, struggling to build up a new life in eastern Europe
[ 5 minutes to read] Dolly Sarkasmo (an alias for her own safety) is a lesbian Ex-Muslim from Egypt. She is…
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‘I’m a Yemeni trans man and my family want to kill me’
[ < 1 minute to read] Bring refugees Yahya & Alexander to Busselton Yahya and his partner Alexander are refugees who are…
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To what extent can I distance myself from this confinement?
[ 2 minutes to read] In the midst of Afghanistan’s stringent customs and societal norms, I found myself at a crossroads, grappling with the weight of my past decisions. The unexpected turn in my life occurred when I formed a friendship with a young man, and it was decided that he would propose to me. In order to comply with Afghan traditions, we chose to claim that we had no prior knowledge of each other before the marriage proposal, for Afghanistan’s strict rules on pre-marital relationships carried the weight of severe consequences and social criticism.
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Seeking Dutch Teacher for Future Netherlands Immigrant
[ < 1 minute to read] Title: Seeking Dutch Teacher for Future Netherlands Immigrant Introduction: Hello everyone! 👋 I’m a motivated medical…
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Save us! Afghan Atheists
[ < 1 minute to read] I am an Afghan atheist who is currently living in Afghanistan under the rule of the…
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Stranded in Georgia: The Challenges of Asylum Seekers
[ 3 minutes to read] As an asylum seeker, I have faced numerous obstacles in my journey to rebuild my life….
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My Journey as an Ex-Muslim and LGBTQ+ Activist
[ 5 minutes to read] My name is Dolly, and I am an ex-Muslim and a lesbian activist. I had to…
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Ilham’s world shaken by natural disaster #6
[ 3 minutes to read] The earthquake makes life for undercover ex-muslims even more difficult
March 2023 – When the earthquakes hit Turkey recently Ilham was struggling with illness and “didn’t even realize what was going” when his shaking building woke him up.
“I was sick and had a fever,” Ilham told SUN.
Asleep in his bed, ill, and confused with a fever, a natural disaster prevented him from leaving his eight-storey building. Ilham, a pseudonym to protect his real identity, is a 23-year-old Afghan refugee who has rejected Islam. He fled Afghanistan to escape his family and the brutal regime that would kill him for his lack of belief. Ilham had provided assistance to the U.S. forces in Afghanistan, which made him even more of a target by the Taliban.
He stayed in his ground-floor apartment for a while but decided he should go out to see what happened. It was then that authorities told people to stay outside. Temperatures were below freezing in Tokat Province where Ilham lives. He got out of the building before the second earthquake hit.
“We had to stay outside the whole day. We were told not to enter buildings,” he said. He had a jacket to keep warm but his legs were freezing.
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Disowned by his family, Nahabwe Moses needs help to finish his training as a midwife
[ 2 minutes to read] He’s worked very hard and is almost there to finish his education to become a midwife…
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Ex-Muslim lives a secret life to stay alive – #5
[ 2 minutes to read] Ilham lives a lie every day of his life so he may stay alive and somehow achieve the freedom he so desperately desires. ”I have to pretend i am a Muslim”
October 2022 – “I have to pretend I am a Muslim to be able to have a place to stay,” Ilham told SUN in a recent interview. “I am living in one of the most conservative provinces in Turkey and the university I study (at) try to further pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism.”
Ilham, a pseudonym to protect his real identity, is an Afghan refugee in his early 20s who has rejected Islam. He fled Afghanistan to escape his family and the brutal regime that would kill him for his lack of belief.
He likens his daily life now to a form of psychological torture.
“I am suffering from extreme anxiety and trauma,” said Ilham. “Sometimes it really gets over me.”
While Turkey is “safer” than Afghanistan it is still an Islamic country that has little tolerance for those who don’t believe. “It’s better than Afghanistan but far from freedom,” he said.
So Ilham wraps himself up in the lie that he is a believer in order to survive his daily life in a small, conservative city.
“The landlord thinks I am a Muslim,” explained Ilham. “He has forbidden me from having a girlfriend in house or drinking.”
He constantly parries questions about why people haven’t seen him at the mosque or why he isn’t praying. Ilham gives excuses to them like he was sick (which he often is) or that they must have just missed him. -
#InMemoriumMonday: We mourn ConfusedHeathen
[ 2 minutes to read] ConfusedHeathen (CH) was an Egyptian assigned female-at-birth trans person. By all accounts, he should be celebrated…
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Nicks struggle – episode 4
[ 9 minutes to read] At a certain time, Nickie and his girlfriend were sleeping on plastic chairs in front of…
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Mumino’s Saga – Kidnappings, threats and slow procedures test Mumino’s patience #6
[ 2 minutes to read] October 2022 – Mumino and his family lived in a rental house in Kampala but were forced to move from there, with the help of Freethinkers International, after their location was compromised. His wife was abducted twice by her family. The first time she bravely managed to escape from them on the way to the Friday Prayer.
The second time Mumino had to get the police involved, who only wanted to help after payment. Once they received that, they freed his wife. She thankfully was physically unharmed after these two abductions but was verbally threatened and is still receiving threats currently. This is the cause for them still not being safe. They have moved but now stay inside all day. The eldest child, who is six now and should attend school, cannot because it is not safe. They live within a fence with several other families but the gate does not lock, so it is not very safe. The child can, therefore not play outside with the other children. Not a good situation for a child.
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#InMemoriam: Wish you were here, Sarah Hegazi
[ 2 minutes to read] Gone but not forgotten In the east of Toronto’s downtown, visitors will find a buzzing neighborhood…
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Adopt a refugee for $3 per month
[ 3 minutes to read] Ever since I’ve been involved in helping freethinkers and those on the run for their convictions,…
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Finding hope amidst the depth of despair
[ 4 minutes to read] It is not much of an easy task to keep your head up when everything is…
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Ilham needs your support for health and school #4
[ 2 minutes to read] Update april 2022 – For 22-year-old Ilham he must always temper his dream of living in a free country with everyday life managing challenging health and economic realities in Turkey.
“A country where I wouldn’t have to think twice before saying what I want,” he mused in a recent conversation with SUN.
Ilham (not his real name but an alias to protect him) shares an apartment with friends in a small Turkish city where he goes to school. An atheist who fled his country of Afghanistan and violence against him from family and other true believers, Ilham struggles with making ends meet and a medical condition that adds to his woes. Add to that burden his broken heart over what has happened to his country since the West pulled out of Afghanistan last year.
“I have a rare medical condition,” Ilham explained. “It is when the immune system is overactive and mistakes healthy cells for infection and destroys them.”
No cure exists but there are treatments that relieve the symptoms.
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The story of Muhammad Kiiza – an atheist that grew up in a Muslim village in rural Uganda
[ 3 minutes to read] A study by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 97% of Ugandans…
