Source: https://centerforinquiry.org/news/kacem-el-ghazzali-joins-dr-wafa-bahri-as-center-for-inquiry-un-advocate/
Since 2005, the Center for Inquiry (CFI) has held special consultative status with the United Nations. This has allowed CFI to promote its mission on the world stage, collaborate with like-minded international organizations, and deliver public addresses to an audience of diplomats and delegations from all over the world. CFI’s mission to the UN works to protect and advance universal human rights from a secular, science-based perspective, focusing mainly on three interrelated areas of human rights: freedom of religion, belief, and expression; women’s rights; and LGBTQ equality.
Dr. Wafa Bahri became the Center for Inquiry’s new advocate for the 55th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva, Switzerland, in 2024. Bahri is also the director of the Translations Project, a program of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason & Science. She has been actively involved in defending human rights, with a focus on women’s rights that are suppressed by an intersection of patriarchal and religious layers of oppression. Her academic training in sociolinguistics highlights the importance of language in both empowering and suppressing ideological discourses that affect free speech and free thought.
We are excited to announce that Kacem El Ghazzali has been tapped to join Dr. Bahri as part of CFI’s mission to the UN and represent the organization at the UNHRC. El Ghazzali is an internationally known secular essayist and activist; he is an expert on the Middle East and religious minorities, with academic credentials in Middle Eastern Studies and History from the University of Bern. El Ghazzali brings ten years of experience in human rights advocacy and lobbying for freedom of thought at the United Nations in Geneva to the CFI post.
Together, they will continue giving voice to our international mission and advocate on behalf of CFI’s deeply held values. We look forward to updating the CFI community on our renewed international efforts in the months ahead.