For the past four years, the DISSIDENT CLUB has offered a free space where dissidents from around the world can meet. We’ve organised over 200 events, hosting over 50 countries and covering hundreds of different topics of global and local importance. Now it’s time for us to expand and launch our own independent mediaplatform so that we can create original content from our socio-cultural exchanges at the bar in the form of performances, exhibitions, screenings, conferences and meetings.
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Taha Siddiqui is a Pakistani investigative journalist exiled in France since 2018. He founded and runs the DISSIDENT CLUB, a bar in Paris where the world’s dissidents meet.
He recently published his first book, an autobiography in the form of a graphic novel entitled Dissident Club (named after his bar), which documents his fight for freedom of expression. He has also been a professor at SciencesPo and has written for international news organisations such as the Washington Post, the Guardian, Foreign Policy, etc. since his exile.
On his return to Pakistan, he worked for major international media, including the New York Times, the Guardian and France24. In 2014, he was awarded the Albert Londres Prize for a documentary on Pakistan and Afghanistan.
He had to flee his country with his family six years ago after surviving a kidnap and assassination attempt allegedly carried out by Pakistani army officials. Before the attack, the army had for years threatened to censor his reporting on human rights violations in the country.
A year after his exile, in 2019, he was informed by the French and US governments that his name was on a Pakistani government-approved hit list and that he should never return to Pakistan. Since then, he has been trying to rebuild his life in Paris. You can find him on X/Twitter @TahaSSiddiqui