Spotlight: The Dissident Club
Taha Siddiqui working the bar at The DIssident Club. You’ll find him and his wife Sara Farid serving drinks, hosting events, and chatting with customers.
For the Paris Lit Up 8 launch party, Paris Lit Up debuted an interview with Taha about his story and how the Dissident Club came to be. Check out the interview here!
Taha has started a crowdfunding campaign to help assuage the financial stresses involved with the pandemic. You can find the link to donate here.
Paris Lit Up visited the Dissident Club in Paris to interview its co-founder, Taha Siddiqui, the only non-French journalist who has received the prestigious Albert Londres journalism award. Turns out he had much to say about crises and communities.
People enjoying wine outside the Dissident Club.
Taha and Sara Farid, are political journalists exiled from Pakistan. In the interview, Taha tells us how he escaped kidnapping in Islamabad and found political asylum in France, and what motivated him and Sara to set up their unique bar and café.
The Dissident Club has become a beacon in these dark times and a podium where international journalists, political refugees, activists, academics, and artists in exile can meet to screen documentaries, launch books, give conferences, debate, perform, play music and share their experiences as political exiles.
With its commitment to social and political justice the Dissident Club is one of the latest and greatest additions to the intellectual and cultural scene in Paris. Paris Lit Up hopes the Dissident club continues to thrive and survive in spite of the pandemic and the financial difficulties the two lockdowns have engendered. As crisis has strengthened our community, PLU will collaborate with the Dissident Club to help them raise funds to save their project.