Maajid Nawaz

Maajid Usman Nawaz (; born 2 November 1977) is a British activist and former radio presenter. He was the founding chairman of the think tank Quilliam. Until January 2022, he was the host of an LBC radio show on Saturdays and Sundays. Born in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, to a British Pakistani family, Nawaz is a former member of the Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir. His membership led to his December 2001 arrest in Egypt, where he remained imprisoned until 2006. While there, he read books about human rights and made contact with Amnesty International who adopted him as a prisoner of conscience. He left Hizb-ut-Tahrir in 2007, renounced his Islamist past, and called for a secular Islam. Later, Nawaz co-founded Quilliam with former Islamists, including Ed Husain.

In 2012, Nawaz published an autobiography, ''Radical: My Journey out of Islamist Extremism'', and has since become a prominent critic of Islamism in the United Kingdom. His second book, ''Islam and the Future of Tolerance'' (2015), co-authored with atheist author Sam Harris, was published in October 2015. He was the Liberal Democrats parliamentary candidate for London's Hampstead and Kilburn constituency in the 2015 United Kingdom general election. Since 2020, Nawaz has been accused of promoting false claims and conspiracy theories related to COVID-19 and the 2020 United States presidential election. Provided by Wikipedia