In order to retain Special Consultative Status at the United Nations (UN), all Non Governmental Organisations (NGO) are required to submit quadrennial reports. I have obtained the quadrennial report that Atheist Alliance International (AAI) submitted to the UN, for the period 2017-2020. On very consequential issues, the document is deliberately dishonest and intentionally misleading. AAI lied in writing to the UN. They deliberately hid crucial information that they were required to reveal, and intentionally deceived the UN into thinking that they had become more democratic, when in fact they had become much less democratic. These calculated lies were told to the UN in order to cover up serious wrongdoing by a small cabal of mendacious people, who unlawfully took personal control of AAI from the legitimate members. A full copy of the AAI quadrennial report that I obtained, is available at the bottom of this page.
The Direct Question
One part of the report that AAI were required to complete for the UN, asked about “significant changes in the organisation”. A full copy of the UN instruction document on how to complete the report, is available at the bottom of this page. The extract illustrated below describes how to answer this specific question about significant changes in the organisation.
As part of the process of awarding Special Consultative Status in the first instance, the UN conducts a close examination of the Bylaws used to govern candidate NGOs. It is perfectly clear that any and all amendments to the AAI Bylaws made during the period 2017-2020, should have been notified in detail to the UN as part of the AAI quadrennial report.
The Honest Truth
The truthful answer to this direct question is a matter of public record. With respect to amendments made against the democratic Bylaws of AAI that were used to acquire Special Consultative Status at the UN, the following events beginning in 2017 are relevant.
Firstly, a small cabal of unelected people on the AAI Board suspended the Bylaws entirely. They did this without telling the rest of the Board and without telling any of the members. Having suspended the Bylaws that required Directors to seek election by the AAI membership, they then improperly appointed themselves to multi-year unelected terms, while making dishonest public announcements falsely claiming that they had in fact been elected.
Secondly, the same small cabal of dishonest people then arranged a bogus meeting at which they purported to make extensive changes to the Bylaws. A full copy of the democratic Bylaws that they inherited, is available at the bottom of this page. A full copy of the anti-democratic new Bylaws that the dishonest cabal introduced, is available here. The changes that they improperly made to the Bylaws without any valid vote, can be summarised as follows:
- The then existing Bylaw 5 requiring a General Meeting of the members to amend the Bylaws was removed, and replaced with a new Bylaw 5 giving the Directors the power to update the Bylaws without reference to the members.
- The then existing Bylaw 56 requiring the election of Directors by the members was removed, and replaced with a new Bylaw 31 that gave the Board the power to appoint new Directors without reference to the members.
- The then existing Bylaw 77 requiring the Board to arrange an Annual General Meeting of the members was removed entirely, such that the Bylaws no longer referred to any forum in which the members could hold the Board accountable.
- The then existing Bylaw 78 requiring the Board to publish financial accounts to the members was removed, such that the members no longer had any visibility of how their subscription fees were being spent by the Board.
Several of the these anti-democratic changes to the Bylaws remain in place today. The same dishonest cabal that destroyed all democratic legitimacy within AAI, also still claim to be Directors of the organisation today. At the time of writing, they continue to insist on retaining this final sentence that they added to the current Bylaw 59:
“The Board shall take motions so passed into consideration but may use its discretion as to whether and how to act upon them.”
Current AAI Bylaw 59
That is, even if all the members vote unanimously to adopt a specific position, the Board can decide to simply ignore that and instead adopt precisely the opposite position. This was not the case before the period of the present AAI quadrennial report, and it is a significant change that should have been outlined in the report. Needless to say, the democratic Bylaws used to acquire Special Consultative Status for AAI at the UN would not have permitted this, as before 2018 all motions passed by the members were immediately binding upon the Board. Consequently, all of these anti-democratic changes to the Bylaws should have been outlined in full to the UN in the AAI quadrennial report, especially those that still apply today.
The Dishonest Answer
The extract illustrated below describes the full text of how the dishonest cabal who control AAI answered this question in writing to the UN.
The cabal in control of AAI lied to the UN. There is no interpretation of their answer that represents an honest description of the changes in the organisation. In fact, what AAI wrote is the precise polar opposite of the truth. Whereas AAI wrote that:
“After several bylaw revisions undertaken in 2018, the AAI Affiliates now select the AAI Board of Directors”
Quote from AAI Quadrennial Report to the UN
In fact, the truth is that the AAI Affiliates always previously elected the AAI Board of Directors, until the Bylaw revisions undertaken in 2018. Specifically, in 2018 the then existing Bylaw 56 requiring the election of Directors by the members was removed, and replaced with a new Bylaw 31 that gave the Board the power to appoint new Directors without reference to the members. This decision was made with the intention that it would be permanent, and that members would never again have the power to elect AAI Directors.
The AAI quadrennial report did not mention that at the time when it was written (and still to this day), the dishonest cabal on the Board can ignore a unanimous vote of the AAI members. The report did not mention that at the time when it was written (and still to this day), the requirement to publish annual accounts to the members has been removed, causing the AAI status as a nonprofit to be revoked by the Attorney General of California.
A Coda On Competence
If the dishonest cabal currently in control of AAI had a modicum of competence, they would have explained the changes that they made to the Bylaws and attempted some kind of justification or rationalisation. They just lied because they are as incompetent as they are corrupt. Further evidence for this can be found in the very first sentence of their quadrennial report to the UN, which states that:
“Atheist Alliance International mission is to … support atheist/forethought organisations”
Quote from AAI Quadrennial Report to the UN
If they were really supporters of “forethought” they might have anticipated that I would acquire a copy of their quadrennial report and document their lies.