Our opening will be by Mariam Namazey, a woman who has inspired many and keeps to inspire more and more. Mariam is known for her remarkable work on women's rights, issues, freaks, pressure, political Islam and secularism. She's a political activist, a blogger and the host of the Bread and Rosie's TV show. She's a spoke person for a number of organizations. FITNA, Movement for Women's Liberation, Equal Rights Now, One Law for All campaign against Surrey, Allowing Britain, and Founder, one of the main founders of the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain. She works closely with Iran's solidarity and international community, again, stoning. Mariam is an honorary associate of many secular institutions, including the National Secular Society, the National Center Internationalist, and many others. She was awarded the number of awards, including the Journalists of the Year at the Docks Women in Public Life Awards. The National Secular Society is Secularists of the Year's Award, the Julia Friedman Humanitarian Award. Please welcome Mariam Namazey to the stage. Thank you, everyone. It's a wonderful honor and pleasure to be here. I want to welcome you all to the International Conference on the Religious Right, Secularism and Civil Rights. It's a very proud moment for me to be here with activists from the front lines of the Middle East, North Africa, South Asia, and Europe, and the diaspora. There is within this whole decades of experience in fighting the religious right, whether it be the Buddhist right in Sri Lanka, the Hindu right in India, the Christian right in Poland or Britain, and of course the Islamists from Algeria, Iran to Pakistan. Many of the people sitting here are the conscience of our societies and our world. I never have they been more needed than in the era of ISIS. This is the main reason we have gathered here today at this historical juncture to provide a marker, a human alternative, and to bring hope in the face of fear and unbridled brutality. We are here to say that the response to the likes of ISIS is not more US-led militarism, which with neo-conservatism, neo-liberalism, and cultural relativism has created a climate for this rise. The response is not the so-called war on terror and an attack on civil rights. It is not seeking out the so-called moderates, appeasing them or having behind the scenes wheelings and dealings with sections of the religious right. The response is not xenophobia and bigotry. It is also not as many on the postmodernist left have shamelessly done, which is defending and siding with the oppressors at the expense of class politics and social movements. The response in the face of unbridled barbarity is not more barbarity and inhumanity. The human response, our response to the religious right, is an uncompromising defense of secularism, the complete separation of religion from the state and an insistence on equality and citizenship rights. ISIS is the result of a retreat of universalism and the erarchization and division of the world and societies into religions, ethnicities, sex, and cultures. A defense of secularism and the concept of the human being and citizen irrespective of one's religion or culture or beliefs are some of the main fights of this century. Our message today is that secularism is not a western ideal, it is a demand and a desire for many people in the world. Faced with the barbarity of the religious right, it is also an urgent task and necessity. Our message today is that not only atheists are secularists, but there are many believers, Muslim and non, in the Middle East, in North Africa, in Asia and the diaspora who are secularists, but may not even call themselves so. No one understands the need for the separation of religion from the state better than those living under the boot of the religious right. At this conference we will reflect on these realities, show our strength and depth of experience and facilitate efforts to build an international front of secularists. Islamism is an international movement, so are we, so are we. In the face of unbridled barbarism, we are here to tell the world that there is hope and a world we can look forward to, but we must unite and unequivocally defend human values, no ifs and no buts. We call on people everywhere to join us to speak up, don't let them intimidate you. Courage brings hope and hope brings courage. We call on people everywhere to show solidarity with people living under or fighting the religious right. In the age of ISIS, solidarity is key. Of course we cannot speak of solidarity today and not make a stand at this conference with the brave men and women fighting in Kobane. It is not racism to do so, but good old fashioned human solidarity, across borders, across boundaries. We want secularism, we want it today and we want it now.