MEDIA RELEASE

The Freethought University Alliance, a coalition of atheist, humanist, secular and skeptic campus groups from universities across Australia, will be launched at The Rise of Atheism, 2010 Global Atheist Convention.

The Alliance will connect student leaders and help them work together and grow as a collective student movement dedicated to furthering science, reason and secular values in Australian society. The Alliance will provide students with useful advice, resources and networking opportunities, and also support students planning to start new aligned groups on university campuses.

The 2010 Global Atheist Convention is pleased to be sponsoring the launch event of the Freethought University Alliance, to be held at 12:30PM on Friday 12 March 2010 at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. Special guest PZ Myers, famous atheist and science blogger, will be a guest speaker at the event, which is open exclusively to university students and includes a free lunch.

To register, send an email to jason@umss.org with your name, university and student number.

Places are strictly limited and are filling fast.

http://ausfreethought.org

Media Release

Tickets for The Rise of Atheism, 2010 Global Atheist Convention are now sold out! The Convention, to be held at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre 12 - 14 March 2010, has attracted substantial Australian and international interest and tickets have sold out more than five weeks before the Convention starts.

David Nicholls, President of the Atheist Foundation of Australia said "We are thrilled with the support for the Convention, from the presenters, the attendees and the many people who have volunteered their time and expertise. With over 2,500 attendees, the Global Atheist Convention will be the largest gathering of freethinkers in Australia's history, and may be the largest atheist convention ever! The Convention will be a celebration of global atheism, a wonderful opportunity to hear the thoughts of scientists, philosophers, writers, comedians and many others, and a statement to political leaders of our concern about the negative effects of religion on society."

Even though tickets have sold out we are still receiving a substantial number of enquiries about sales and we are sorry that many people who would like to attend will miss out on this unique event. Given the strong interest in the Global Atheist Convention we are investigating filming options for a DVD of the event and hope one will be on sale shortly after the Convention" Nicholls continued.

Stuart Bechman, President of Atheist Alliance International, co-host of the Global Atheist Convention added, "The response to The Rise of Atheism Convention has been absolutely fantastic! This will be the largest convention AAI has been involved with and we're excited that atheism and secularism are so well supported in Australia. With such a high level of interest we will have to consider returning to Australia for future conventions."

Presenters at the Global Atheist Convention include Richard Dawkins, Peter Singer, Phillip Adams, PZ Myers, AC Grayling, Taslima Nasrin, Catherine Deveny, Dan Barker, Robyn Williams, Julian Morrow, Craig Reucassel, Maggie Millar, Lyn Allison, Tanya Levin, Leslie Cannold, Jane Caro and many more!

For further information on the Global Atheist Convention visit www.atheistconvention.org.au.

We'll see you in Melbourne!

The Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA) has questioned a decision by the Victorian Government to reject an application for funding for the Global Atheist Convention to be held in Melbourne next March.

The application was made in June 2009 through the Premier’s Department. It was then passed like a ball of flaming brimstone to the Convention and Visitors Bureau and, from there, to the Victorian Multicultural Commission where it has remained, smouldering, for months.

The AFA was advised that the basic criteria for funding was over one thousand ticket sales, including purchases from interstate and overseas. That goal was accomplished in October.

Also in October, the Atheist Foundation received a letter of rejection from the Premier’s Department. But, when AFA President, David Nicholls, questioned the decision he was told the letter had been sent in error, because the application was now being handled elsewhere.

This week, the Convention & Visitors Bureau advised that it was rejecting the AFA’s application because the Convention was already ‘secured’. This was a surprise to the AFA, who believed their application was being handled through the Multicultural Commission and had never been told that securing a venue would disqualify the Convention from funding. In fact, the venue was secured months ago prompting no comment from any government department until now.

"One has to ask," says Nicholls, "how you can confirm 1,000 ticket sales before having a venue secured."

"And," Nicholls continues, "if our application didn’t meet the government criteria, why did they hold on to our application for five months without once mentioning that fact?"

The Global Atheist Convention is a major international event, involving an impressive line-up of world-class speakers. The Convention has been promoted world-wide and will be the largest gathering of freethinkers in Australia’s history. At least 2,000 people are expected to attend the event, bringing considerable publicity and revenue to Victoria. While applications were made to federal, state and municipal authorities with careful attention to meeting funding criteria, not one application has yet been approved.

Conversely, The Parliament of the World’s Religions which is hosting 5,000 people at the same venue (the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre) has attracted $4.5 million in government support – 16 times the amount requested by the AFA.

"The atheist community is large, well-educated and well-connected," said Nicholls. "It’s not going to take long for word to get out internationally that Victoria does not welcome non-theists."

Still, Nicholls is hopeful the situation can be resolved.

"Either this is an ideological and bigoted decision on the part of the Brumby government or a serious bureaucratic bungle. We’re very hopeful that it’s the latter and that Mr Brumby will step in quickly and put things right."

Contact:

David Nicholls
President
Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc
Private Mail Bag 6
Maitland SA 5573

Email: info@atheistfoundation.org.au
Phone: (08) 8835 2269
International +61 8 8835 2269

Web: http://www.atheistfoundation.org.au

Forum: http://atheistfoundation.org.au/forums/

Convention: http://www.atheistconvention.org.au

A major and sustained Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack on the Atheist Foundation of Australia (AFA) last week caused a major disruption, took down both the AFA and Global Atheist Convention websites and forced the organisation to move its online operations to another server.

The attack came in the wake of the Atheist Foundation’s announcement that in the first three weeks after the official launch, 1,000 tickets have been sold for The Rise of Atheism Global Atheist Convention to be held in Melbourne next March. The Convention will be the largest gathering of atheists and other freethinkers in Australia’s history.

With a stellar line-up of international and local speakers including Richard Dawkins, Peter Singer, PZ Myers and Catherine Deveny, the event was already attracting world-wide attention.

As news of the attack broke online in The Age, the Sydney Morning Herald and a number of other major newspapers, the publicity generated spread news of the Global Atheist Convention broadly.

“Thanks to the AFA technical team, we were able to get our Convention website up quickly to take advantage of the huge wave of interest generated by the news reports,” says Nicholls.

Ironically, while the attack was almost certainly aimed at silencing the Atheist Foundation’s call for a more secular Australia, the resulting publicity has only highlighted the importance of freedom of speech and rational debate.

“We don’t know who launched the attack on our websites – and they certainly succeeded in taking us out of action temporarily – but ultimately, the result has been positive. There’s been overwhelming support for the Foundation and the Convention on internet forums, and we’ve had a sharp spike in ticket sales” says Nicholls.

On a humorous note, a group of Facebook atheists has called for non-believers and advocates for freedom of speech to respond to the attacks on the AFA’s websites by participating in a global co-ordinated minute of prayer on 8 November. The aim is to inundate God with so many useless requests that it will cause him to go offline as a result of their DDOS ('Divine' Denial of Service) assault.

Contact:

David Nicholls
President
Atheist Foundation of Australia Inc
Private Mail Bag 6
Maitland SA 5573
Australia

Phone:
Australia – (08) 8835-2269
International - +61 8 8835-2269

Recently the Global Atheist Convention website suffered a DDOS (Distributed Denial of Service) attack, which caused the Global Atheist Convention and the Atheist Foundation of Australia websites to be taken offline. This was a network attack and we have been informed it was specifically aimed at our websites. While we do not know source or reason for the attacks, they came in the wake of news that Global Atheist Convention has already sold 1,000 tickets and will be the largest gathering of atheists and other freethinkers in Australia’s history. This may have been not just an attack on atheism, but an attack on freedom of speech.

We sincerely apologise for any inconvenience people have experienced. We look forward to seeing you in Melbourne!

The following story has featured in The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Canberra Times, The Brisbane Times, The Inquirer, The Press, ZDNet, The Register and Digital Journal.

Cyber attacks smite atheist websites | October 21 2009 | The Age

Australian atheists are under attack, with the websites of both the Atheist Foundation of Australia and the Global Atheist Convention knocked offline in a major cyber attack yesterday afternoon.

The "distributed denial of service" attacks flooded the websites with traffic, forcing them offline about 5.20pm yesterday.

As of this morning, the foundation had still not been able to restore the websites.

The attacks may be related to the Global Atheist Convention, which is being held in Melbourne in March next year. Speakers include Richard Dawkins, author of The God Delusion and comedy writer Catherine Deveny.

About 1000 tickets have been sold so far through the Global Atheist Convention website, which was set up, and is operated, by the AFA.

The AFA is billing the event as the largest gathering of atheists in Australian history but ticket sales have had to be halted for now due to the cyber attack.

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