RD: Rana, it's a great pleasure
to meet you finally personally,
having read and greatly admired you
from having read your book,
an early draft of your book,
'Women are not allowed to dream'.
Coming from Saudi-Arabia,
I have the impression that unless you are rich and male,
Saudi-Arabia is not a very nice place to live.
Is that a fair statement?
RA: Like a woman and also like an atheist,
it is the worst place to live.
For women, we don't have any dream there.
All the time we are dependent on our family,
my father, my brother, my husband.
I can't do anything in this country,
all the time I need the permission from them.
And even if my situation is really bad,
if I get hit or if I have something bad with my family,
I can't call the police or ask for help.
RD: When you are not allowed to dream,
what dreams did you actually have?
Did you dream to come to a free country?
RA: Yes, to live in a free country,
to have my free life, to be an atheist
and not to behave like I am a Muslim,
but inside I am an atheist.
To respect me.
I don't want to believe in any kind of religion or god.
I want to live in peace
without any forcing to be someone else
and to study nuclear physics, to meet you and ...
RD: Is it right to say that you didn't really know
that there was such a thing as an atheist,
that it was possible to be an atheist when you were growing up?
RA: Yes, I was completely shocked
when I saw the word 'atheist' in English.
I took it to Google and I translated it into Arabic.
And even in Arabic, what does 'mulahad' mean?
Then I searched and then I was completely shocked
there is people in our life who don't believe in god
or they don't have any religion.
It was something so weird for me.
RD: It was impossible to believe
that anybody could not believe in god.
RA: Yes. And from this moment, I started to search.
And in our Arabic Twitter, Facebook or media,
if you start to search about atheist,
the first suggestion or the first book they put [there],
that you have to read is your book, 'God Delusion'.
RD: And you read that in Arabic?
RA: I read it in Arabic.
It's illegal to have it, even to download it.
I had to change my VPN to get the book.
When I got the book,
I downloaded it on my laptop,
then I put it on my flash memory.
I kept my flash memory like a drug
or something really dangerous.
When I read it in my room, I closed the door,
I put something in front of the door,
and I opened my laptop and started reading, reading, reading.
RD: What would have happened to you
if you had been caught reading it?
RA: My family is really struck with religion.
They will not even ...
Because the name in Arabic, God Delusion,
if someone saw it from my family,
I think I would be hit,
they would take all my contacts, laptop, phone, anything from this,
I would be isolated in the house,
not allowed to go out or to contact anyone
until they are sure that I am Muslim
and I don't have any other idea.
RD: Do you still feel threatened, even living in Germany?
RA: Yes. Threatened because I talk about
freedom of religion and I talk about women's rights.
It is coming from the people who are living here in Germany.
They are also refugees, they come from other countries.
RD: So you are being threatened by fellow refugees
who have come out of Islamic countries,
and they come to a free country, Germany,
and they still threaten you?
RA: Yes. Because I talk about this topic in Arabic,
another language, and I really support women to be also free.
Not only because of the religion.
RD: So, these refugees in Germany who threaten you,
do they not realize they are now living in a free country?
RA: I think they don't want to realize that.
They want to stay in the same idea. RD: Why don't they go back home then?
RA: It's not my decision.
I hope they will be really ... [?] With this kind of people,
when I see people who threaten others,
they are dangerous and they don't respect the freedom.
They don't respect the right here,
why are they here?
RD: Do your family know where you are?
RA: They know that I am in Germany
but they don't know which city.
RD: So do you keep that secret?
RA: Yes. I also block my information
with the help of the police and the immigration office here.
Anyone who takes my name
and tries to find where I live, he can't.
RD: What would happen to you
if they did find where you are?
RA: 2 or 3 weeks ago,
I got the information that my brother tried
to find someony via Darknet to kill me here in Germany.
RD: To kill you? RA: Yes.
RD: Your brother? Your own brother will kill you?
RA: Yes, my brother. I was completely sad and I was crying
when I went to the police. RD: I'm not suprised.
RA: I made the complaint and I saw his name in the beginning
like a criminal, and it was too much for me.
RD: Did you love your brother when you were in Saudi-Arabia?
RA: Yes. Before I became an atheist,
before everything in my mind changed,
we were really close, sister and brother,
we were talking, getting to a restaurant, doing something together.
But after I moved and started my life here,
he didn't accept that, I brought shame on the family.
RD: Which is incredibly sad. RA: Yes.
RD: And it's really troubling
that a belief, a religious belief,
can actually take over somebody's mind,
can parasitze somebody's mind,
to the extent that he would kill,
he wants to kill his own beloved sister.
That is deeply disturbing and it just shows the power,
the evil power, that religion can exert
over a vulnerable human mind.
I am shocked by that.
And I am very sorry for you.
I greatly admire your courage,
the courage with which you are standing up to this.
RA: Thank you.
RD: At present, your book 'A woman is not allowed to dream'
is only published in German and what other languages?
RA: In French. RD: German and French.
RD: Not in Arabic? RA: Not in Arabic.
RD: Not English? RA: Not English.
RD: Now, it seems to me a great pity that it's not pubished in English.
How well is it sold in the German edition?
RA: It was the Spiegel bestseller. RD: A Spiegel bestseller?
RA: In the first three, four, five months, in the beginning it was a bestseller.
RD: Then it must be published in English. That's ridiculous.
We must try to make efforts to find an English publisher.
RD: A bestseller in Spiegel? Congratulations on that.
What about other languages?
RA: If a publishing house gets interested in my story,
they contact me or my agent or my publishing house in Germany,
and we start to deal with that. RD: Yes, okay.
RD: Other languages than English you haven't tried yet?
RA: I think they are trying for other languages,
but now we are successful with French.
I also think it will be in the Czech Republic,
but I am not really sure. RD: Right.
RD: What about other languages spoken in the Islamic world,
like Indonesian, Urdu, Farsi, that kind of thing?
RA: I think it's important.
Because of my story or my book,
I met two Saudi women here in Germany,
they told me afterwards, we were touched by your story,
we saw you on the Internet or we saw your video,
we have the power to get out of our country
and be free like you.
And I think if you read my book,
you will really be touched
and the women are afraid
or they think we can't change our lives, we can't do anything,
we have to accept this kind of society
and we have to accept what they want from us.
But you see it's possible, it's not something really ...
RD: If we think back to your time in Saudi-Arabia
and other Islamic countries,
I'm sure you are not alone.
There must be lots of others like you
who need to escape.
Do you have some sense
of how many atheists there might be in Saudi-Arabia?
It's impossible to know, of course.
But did you talk to any of your friends while you were there?
RA: I think a lot, but we can't really be sure
because they can't show their identity
or say 'We are atheists'.
I think we can say, like 3 or 4 millions, we can say.
RD: We know, don't we, that the Arabic translation
of the God Delusion which you read, you downloaded,
has been downloaded, I think, 13 million times,
the Arabic translation.
I think 3 million of those in Saudi-Arabia,
which is a very significant figure.
It does suggest something very encouraging.
I have heard similar stories from Iran.
That there is a very large groundswell,
a very large underground of non-religious people in Iran.
RA: Because for us, if you start to search,
if you start to open your mind to know other kind of thought,
you will start with an important book.
And for us, it was your book, the beginning.
I think also in Iran, if they want to start with a book,
they start with God Delusion also.
RD: The Richard Dawkins Foundation
is starting a new project
to translate several of my books, not just the God Delusion,
into Arabic, Farsi, Indonesian and Urdu.
For free download.
Not to be published as paperbooks,
but to be downloaded free.
So we hope that that will help people
who still are in the predicament that you were in.
So thank you very much. RA: Thank you.