Nahla Mahmoud

Mahmoud became a spokesperson for the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain (CEMB). In this capacity she appeared in a short (1 minute, 39 seconds)[9] televised interview on Channel 4's 4thought.tv in January 2013[10] to give her perspective on "What does Sharia law have to offer Britain?".[11]^(5:47) She recounted how she grew up living under Sharia in Sudan, where she was ‘always dealt with as a second-class citizen, always brought up to believe that I am an incomplete human being [who] needed a man as a guard.’ Mahmoud found it astonishing that Britain, the country she had fled to escape Islamic rule, maintained a similar system of sharia courts, arguing that ‘Everyone should have equal rights and live under one secular law.’[9] This interview led her to be targeted by an Islamist hate campaign,[12] led by Salah Al Bander, director of the Sudan Civic Foundation[13] and a former LibDem councillor in Cambridge City Council, who called Mahmoud a ‘Kafira’ (unbeliever) on a Sudanese Arabic website. He stated that ‘I will not forgive anyone who wants to start a battle against Islam and the beliefs of the people’.[9] When mosques and Sudanese newspapers took up the campaign against her, Mahmoud received numerous death threats and both she and her family in Sudan were harassed;[9][11]^(5:52) her brother over there was physically attacked.[13] Even the official Facebook page of the Sudanese Armed Forces called Mahmoud an infidel and apostate.[14] The local LibDem leader, Spencer Hagard, who investigated Al Bander, saw no fault in his behaviour, and even regarded him more highly than before. Mahmoud filed a complaint with the police, but received no protection, and instead got the suggestion to keep quiet about her views.[13][15]

At the Secular Conference 2014, Mahmoud highlighted the aggression from Islamists faced by ex-Muslims, critics of Islam, atheists of all backgrounds, and anti-traditional liberal Muslims, commenting that it was "really scary" that a 2011 Policy Exchange survey found that 34% of British Muslims aged 16 to 24 supported the death penalty for apostasy.[11]^(12:33) She rebuked the regressive left attitude of some Westerners who dismiss any kind of criticism of Islam as 'islamophobia', and ignore Islamic intolerance in the spirit of 'multiculturalism'.[11]^(5:57)

Mahmoud has estimated that during the years 2010, 2011 and 2012, there have been between 120 and 170 Sudanese citizens who have been convicted for apostasy, most of whom repented to avoid a death sentence.[6]

Mahmoud appeared in Among Nonbelievers (2015), a Dutch documentary on HUMAN about the situation of ex-Muslims worldwide.

Mahmoud is an environmentalist[2] who is passionate about nature, and received training as an ecologist. In her 2013 research paper "Climate Change and Violent Conflicts in East Africa" for the Evelyn Oldfield Unit, she sought to "[question] the traditional analyses of conflicts, which rely primarily on ethnic, religious, and cultural explanations since these do not take account of the increasingly obvious link between the growing scarcity of renewable resources and violent conflict in the three East African countries [Sudan, South Sudan and Ethiopia. Shortages of cropland, fresh water, woodland, pasture and marine resources cannot be ignored."[7]