Zara Kay

Zara Kay (born 1992) is an ex-Muslim atheist, secular activist and women's rights activist, based in London. She is the founder of Faithless Hijabi, an international non-profit organisation that seeks to support the rights of Muslim-raised women, especially those who are in the process of leaving or have left Islam. The languages of English, Gujarati, Swahili, and Kutchi were spoken at home, but not Arabic. ("At home she spoke Gujarati, Swahili, Kutchi and English, but significantly no one in the family knew any Arabic, and so had to read the Koran in translation." There, she finished her bachelor's degree in information technology and her master's degree in business information systems at the age of twenty-one.)

Faithless Hijabi

Kay founded Faithless Hijabi (FH) in 2018 in Sydney. Faithless Hijabi is a storytelling platform that enables ex-Muslim and questioning Muslim women to share their stories of apostasy, doubt and freedom. While being a platform that creates safe spaces for women to express their dissent, Faithless Hijabi strives to take an active role in advocating for women's rights. FH is active on numerous social media in order to enable people to reach out for help. At present, the organisation primarily publishes stories and blogs in English, but has recently launched their Arabic social media pages. FH's mission is "Educate through stories," and "to empower an underrepresented group of women."

Faithless Hijabi was involved with the case of Rahaf Mohammed, the 18-year-old Saudi Arabian woman who managed to escape from her family in January 2019, but was held by Thai authorities at Bangkok Airport, after which she was able to raise international pressure via social media to allow her to continue to Canada.

2020 arrest

Kay was arrested in Dar es Salaam on 28 December 2020 and taken into police custody for 32 hours before being released on bail. She was advised to appear back before police authorities in the first week of January 2021. Kay was charged with not returning her Tanzanian passport after acquiring Australian citizenship, using the SIM card of a family member without registering it in her own name, and writing a satirical social media message about the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Tanzania. Ex-Muslim activists associated with The International Coalition of Ex-Muslims believed that Kay was questioned about the work of the organisation and why she left Islam during her interrogation, and they expressed concern for her welfare. Journalist Anthony Galloway reported that the charge of not registering a phone SIM card in one's own name has been used previously against other activists in Tanzania who have criticised the government. Louis Kalumbia also reports that Kay has visited Tanzania by taking Tanzanian visa.