The Centre for Secular Space began as an informal network of experienced human rights activists who had worked in concert for years in struggles for women’s human rights and against fundamentalism, and came together in February 2010 to defend Gita Sahgal, former head of Amnesty International’s gender unit.  She was suspended from this position after she publicly expressed concerns about AI’s close relationship with Cageprisoners, a defence group for prisoners in Guantanamo which some consider a pro-salafi-jihadi organization.  People in the CSS network developed a far-reaching campaign on Sahgal’s behalf, including a global petition that gathered 1500 signatures.  As the year progressed, they began to feel the need for more organization, program and strategy.  Meeting in London in February 2011, they decided to organize the Centre for Secular Space.

Staff of the Centre for Secular Space

Gita Sahgal (Executive Director) is a writer and documentary film maker, and the co-editor of  Refusing Holy Orders: Women and Fundamentalism in Britain. She has written on gender, fundamentalism, and human rights for the American Society of International Law, Women Living Under Muslim Laws, and openDemocracy, and has made documentary films on forced marriage and human rights violations during the Bangladeshi war of liberation.  She was a member of Southall Black Sisters and a founder of Women Against Fundamentalism and Awaaz: South Asia Watch. She was the inaugural Head of the Gender Unit at Amnesty International, leaving after ‘irreconcilable differences’ over its relationship with a salafi-jihadi defense group.  (UK)

Ariane Brunet (Program Director) was Coordinator of the Women’s Rights Program at Rights and Democracy 1991-2008; she also led the organization’s work in Canada, the Middle East, and North Africa, and at the UN Human Rights Commission.  She is a co-founder of the Urgent Action Fund and a founder of the International Coalition for Women’s Human Rights in Conflict Situations.  She served on the international advisory committee for the International War Crimes Tribunal on Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery, the board of the Women’s Caucus for Gender Justice, and the advisory board of its successor, Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice. (Canada)

Board of Directors 

Alison Assiter is Professor of Feminist Theory in the History, Politics and Philosophy Department of the University of Western England in Bristol, a longtime activist in many progressive causes, and the author of five books on feminism. (UK)

Yakin Ertürk serves on the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture.  She was the UN Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women 2003-2009 and is a Professor of Sociology at Middle East Technical University in Ankara. (Turkey)

Hameeda Hossain began by organizing women war victims in the 1971Bangladesh  war of liberation.  She is the Chair and a founding member of Ain O Salish Kendra (ASK), an internationally known organization doing women’s human rights monitoring and advocacy in the countryside.  (Bangladesh)

Ann Snitow is head of the Gender Studies Program at the New School University, the Founding Chair of the Network of East-West Women (NEWW) and an activist, teacher and writer in both the American and Eastern European women's movements. (US)

Meredith Tax (Chair of the Board of Directors) is a novelist, historian, and essayist with four books in print.  She has been an activist in the feminist movement since the late sixties, most recently as president of Women’s WORLD (1994-2003), a global free speech network of feminist writers.  She blogs at http://www.meredithtax.org. (US)

Advisory Board

Sunila Abeysekera  is a peace and security activist particularly known for her work in Sri Lanka’s civil war.  She was the recipient of the UN Human Rights Award Prize in 1988, was Human Rights Watch’s Defender of the Year in 2007, and is Chair of the Urgent Action Fund.  (Sri Lanka/Netherlands)

Nadezdha Azhgikhina is a journalist and human rights activist, active in Memoria, and co-founder of the Union of Russian Women Journalists.  She initiated and edited the first women’s page to appear in a Russian newspaper and is Executive Secretary of the Russian Journalists’ Union.  (Russia)

Dorothy Aken’Ova is a sexual and human rights organizer, founder of the International Centre for Reproductive Health and Sexual Rights (INCRESE) in Niger State, Nigeria, a conservative Muslim area, where she does work around the rights of sexual minorities.  (Nigeria)

Amrita Chhachhi is Lecturer in Women, Gender and Development Studies at the Institute of Social Studies, The Hague. Her work focusses on gender, labour, poverty, and globalisation. She is on the advisory board of Gender, Women and Development and HIVOS. (Netherlands/India)

Anissa Helie (Advisory Board Member) is former Executive Director of Women Living Under Muslim Laws.  She is a board member of the Urgent Action Fund and the Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights, and an Assistant Professor of History at John Jay College, City University of New York.  (Algeria/US)

Sara Hossain is a practicing human rights lawyer at the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, and Honorary Director of BLAST (Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust). She was previously Director of the South Asia Program at INTERIGHTS.  (Bangladesh)

Frances Kissling (Advisory Board Member) was President of Catholics for a Free Choice from 1982 to 2007.  She was founding President of the National Abortion Federation, a providers’ organization, and is now a visiting scholar at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. (US)

Sonja Licht, a Serbian dissident and democratic activist, was Co-Chair of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, founded in 1990.  She was Director of the Belgrade office of the Open Society Foundation 1991-2011 and is now directing the Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence, which trains politicians in democratic practices. (Serbia)

Vijay Nagaraj is Executive Director of the International Council of Human Rights Policy. He was previously an Assistant Professor at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, and was Director of Amnesty International in India 2003-7.  He has also worked with the rural poor in Rajasthan. (India)

Madeleine Rees is Secretary-General of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF).  She was previously a gender expert in the Bosnia and Herzogovina office of the UN High Commissioner for Human RIghts, and was head of the OHCHR's women's rights and gender unit 2006-1010. (Switzerland)

Afiya Sherhbano Zia  is a professor of sociology and a feminist writer and scholar who works to defend secularism and challenge the influence of Islamism.  She is a member of the Karachi branch of the Women’s Action Forum. (Pakistan)