A survivor of a horrific Islamist assault who has redoubled her secular activism is interviewed on the Freedom From Religion Foundation’s TV talk show this Sunday.
Bonya Ahmed is a Bangladeshi-American secular activist and co-founder of Think, which specializes in short educational videos, many of them directed to her native country of Bangladesh. She has received the Forward Award from FFRF and has given a Ted talk called “Narratives Can Be Deadly — How I Recovered From a Terror Attack.” In an Islamist ambush in Bangladesh in 2015, Ahmed was nearly killed and her husband, Avijit Roy, a well-known atheist and author, was brutally murdered.
“The best part of this is our core team,” she tells “Freethought Matters” co-hosts Dan Barker and Annie Laurie Gaylor about Think. “The full-time employees are actually the secular bloggers from Bangladesh who were forced to leave the country, flee the country. And they have actually trained themselves, like our editor who makes the videos.”
Tune in to watch excerpts of Think’s beautifully produced and animated videos, which are enlightening Bangladesh and the world about evolution, science, Covid-19, why menstrual periods and the transgendered are not shameful — and so much more!
If you don’t live in the more than one-fourth of the country where the show broadcasts on Sunday, you can already catch the interview on FFRF’s YouTube channel.
This is the fall season’s 22nd episode of “Freethought Matters,” airing in over a dozen cities on Sunday, Jan. 24.
Shows in the coming year will include interviews with Public Religion Research Institute founder Robert P. Jones, author of White Too Long: The Legacy of White Supremacy in American Christianity; Atheist Republic founder and former Muslim Armin Navabi; Nate Phelps, the freethinking son of the notorious Fred Phelps, founder of the Westboro Baptist Church; and Law Professor Jay Wexler, whose most recent book is Our Non-Christian Nation.
“Freethought Matters” airs in:
- Chicago, WPWR-CW (Ch. 50), Sundays at 9 a.m.
- Denver, KWGN-CW (Ch. 2), Sundays at 7 a.m.
- Houston, KUBE-IND (Ch. 57), Sundays at 9 a.m.
- Los Angeles, KCOP-MY (Ch. 13), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Madison, Wis., WISC-TV (Ch. 3), Sundays at 11 p.m.
- Minneapolis, KSTC-IND (Ch. 45), Sundays at 9:30 a.m.
- New York City, WPIX-IND (Ch. 11), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Phoenix, KASW-CW (Ch. 61, or 6 or 1006 for HD), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- Portland, Ore., KRCW-CW (Ch. 32), Sundays at 9 a.m. Comcast channel 703 for High Def, or Channel 3.
- Sacramento, KQCA-MY (Ch. 58), Sundays at 8:30 a.m.
- San Francisco, KICU-IND (Ch. 36), Sundays at 10 a.m.
- Seattle, KONG-IND (Ch. 16 or Ch. 106 on Comcast). Sundays at 8 a.m.
- Washington, D.C., WDCW-CW (Ch. 50), Sundays at 8 a.m.
Previous guests from the fall season include: pundit Eleanor Clift, whose interview you can watch here, actor and FFRF After-Life Member John de Lancie of “Star Trek” “Q” fame, Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter Linda Greenhouse, the country’s leading analyst of the U.S. Supreme Court, and legislative stalwart and feminist and civil rights pioneer U.S. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton. One of the most eminent public intellectuals in the world, Professor Steven Pinker, was interviewed a few episodes ago talking about his new course on rationality. Legendary TV host, actor and singer John Davidson was the guest in early December. Recently, the show featured Ann Druyan, the co-creator of “Cosmos,” possibly the most acclaimed TV series of all time. And just last week, A.C. Grayling, a prominent British philosopher and the author of about 30 books, grappled on the show with philosophy and the pandemic, and discussed how he himself dealt as a nonbeliever with a personal tragedy.
Watch previous seasons here, including interviews with Ron Reagan, Julia Sweeney and Ed Asner, as well as U.S. Reps. Jared Huffman and Jamie Raskin, co-chairs of the Congressional Freethought Caucus.
Please tune in to “Freethought Matters” . . . because freethought matters.
P.S. Please tune in or record according to the times given above regardless of what is listed in your TV guide (it may be listed simply as “paid programming” or even be misidentified). To set up an automatic weekly recording, try taping manually by time or channel. And spread the word to freethinking friends, family or colleagues about a TV show, finally, that is dedicated to providing programming for freethinkers!
