Exposure - Episode Guide

"I remember saying to my mum, ‘I don't think I believe in God any more,' And her saying, ‘You can't tell anybody else because they'll kill you, we are obliged to kill ex-Muslims,' and that it would put me at extreme risk if anybody else was to find out, so that conversation ended there." - Sadia, a former Muslim

This new documentary in the Exposure current affairs strand investigates the lives of ex-Muslims, who face extreme discrimination, ostracism, psychological abuse and violence as a result of leaving Islam.

Featuring contributions from British and Bangladeshi ex-Muslims, Islam's Non-Believers paints a vivid picture of the dangers facing those who renounce their faith. Some are at risk of suicide, or self-harm, or have been physically and psychologically abused by their closest family members. Most are terrified of being shunned by their own family and friends if their true beliefs become known.

Made by award-winning film-maker Deeyah Khan, who also directed the acclaimed Jihad - A British Story and Banaz: An Honour Killing for ITV, the programme finds that many young British ex-Muslims live in the shadows hiding their true beliefs, running huge risks if they ‘come out' as atheists within their religious communities. Some of those who speak in the programme have asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.

The film follows the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, a volunteer support group led by Iranian-born activist Maryam Namazie which supports ex-Muslims, often referred to as apostates or unbelievers, both in the UK and abroad. Maryam says: "They see us as people who are troublemakers, deviants, apostates and blasphemers… There is nothing, nothing more intolerant than religion."

One ex-Muslim, Sadia, talks about her brother Razaa, who killed himself. She says it was partly because he felt sidelined and misunderstood by his community all his life, one reason being his atheism. She says: "I feel like when you leave Islam, your intelligence gets attacked. They make you feel like you're stupid for making such a decision, which he felt like his entire life. Leaving Islam, becoming an ex-Muslim, all of a sudden you feel like you're dirty, and you become unimportant within the community."

Dr Omer El-Hamdoon from the Muslim Association of Britain says people can leave the religion of their own free will and should not be punished. But he says it is not surprising that those who do leave are shunned. He says: "The Muslim community is a community based on religion, so if a person chooses to stop being a Muslim they can't really expect that the Muslim community is still going to say to them, ‘You are still part of our community.'"

The programme also reports on how the danger for ex-Muslims who live in Islamic countries can be even higher. Apostasy carries the death penalty in a dozen Islamic countries. Atheists face a double threat - persecution by their own government, and the risk of murder at the hands of Islamist gangs.

Bonya Ahmed, whose writer and blogger husband Avijit Roy was brutally killed in the streets of Bangladesh, speaks about the attack and how she is trying to rebuild her life in America. Avijit was murdered because he spoke out against religious fundamentalism. They are just two of many atheist bloggers and intellectuals who have been attacked by Islamist gangs wielding machetes in Bangladesh.

Also featured is an international network of atheist writers, bloggers, academics, intellectuals and artists who form a resistance movement against what they see as the growing oppression, violence and political power of Islamic fundamentalists. Many live in Muslim countries where leaving Islam carries the risk of prosecution and discrimination.

Arif Rehman, a Bangladeshi blogger now in hiding in London, says he sees bloggers as a resistance movement against religious extremism. He says: "When we started writing in 2006, we did not think the people would be killed over this. And in 2013 our first colleague Ahmed Rajab Haidar, he was an architect, was hacked to death in front of his house. That was the first time we realised this was real this could potentially happen."

The programme finds that a number of senior British Bangladeshi imams, mainstream figures in society, have called for the execution of atheist bloggers in Bangladesh, claiming they have insulted Islam, and making a number of anti-atheist statements.

Imad Habib, from Maryam's organisation, is filmed on his way to help two girls escape from their Muslim family while they are on holiday in London. He says he had undertaken a similar journey - after he came out publicly as an ex-Muslim, he had to leave Morocco to escape prosecution by the authorities and attacks by religious extremists. He says: "First of all you suffer, you suffer, there is no one to help you, if you speak out at any moment you are going to be at risk, you speak out you feel afraid that anyone might find out who you are really, it is a really risky journey that those people take."

This documentary sees how ex-Muslims continue to struggle to be heard and to express themselves, with radical Islamist protesters often trying to shut down their talks and events. Deeyah identifies these as a part of a growing international movement which is confronting radical Islam both in the UK and the Islamic world. Maryam says they remain defiant: "The internet and social media is doing to Islam what the printing press did in the past to Christianity, because it's one way in which masses of people can connect with each other, can hear ideas that are taboo and forbidden."

In the 30 years after the Second World War, half a million women had a child adopted – most were babies born to unmarried mothers.

This documentary special in the Exposure strand reveals the stories of some of the many thousands of women pressured by Church and State into giving up their babies for adoption.

Decades later, women are breaking the silence to tell the truth about this injustice.

This new documentary in the Exposure current affairs strand goes undercover to investigate the troubled world of supported housing.

Footage secretly filmed in hostels for vulnerable people around Britain finds filthy living conditions, and inadequate support for residents.

Produced by Hardcash, who made the acclaimed Saudi Arabia Uncovered, Charities Behaving Badly and Banaz: An Honour Killing for ITV, this programme reveals troubling evidence of neglect, and the death of a former policeman in a homeless hostel.

In this authored documentary for ITV's Exposure current affairs strand, Emmy Award-winning film-maker Deeyah Khan meets US neo-Nazis and white nationalists face to face and attends America's biggest and most violent far right rally in recent years. Khan, who has received death threats in the past after advocating diversity and multiculturalism, tries to get behind the violent ideology, to seek to understand the personal and political reasons behind the apparent resurgence of far right extremism in the US.

Exposure presents the results of a year-long undercover investigation into privately-run children's care homes, examining the standard of care provided and asking where the money is spent.

ITV's Exposure investigates the private schools that appeared willing to disregard children's safety, with some failing to take action against predatory paedophiles, who groomed and assaulted young boarders over and over again, sometimes getting away with it for decades. Did protecting a school's reputation mean their pupils were put at risk?

This documentary follows Alex Renton, a journalist who himself was sexually abused as an eight year old by his teacher at one of the country's top boarding schools.

Featuring new interviews with senior figures in the justice system interwoven with footage taken by prisoners on illegal mobile phones, this programme investigates the state of our prisons and ask why the Birmingham riot happened. It shows how the riot unfolded using never previously broadcast recordings of radio messages made by staff during the disorder.

This new documentary in ITV's Exposure current affairs strand features a film-maker going undercover into Iran to meet women challenging the religious autocrats who have ruled the country for 40 years.

This programme reveals their hopes and fears and provides a vivid insight into their determination to fight for a modern, tolerant Iran, free from religious imposition and shows the heavy price they've all had to pay for their rebellion.

With MPs poised to make the most momentous decision in recent British history, this new documentary in ITV's award-winning Exposure strand investigates the new, inflammatory, unregulated world of online political campaigning.

Over the last 12 months, Exposure has had exclusive access to MPs and Lords who have experienced a barrage of menacing messages and even death threats on social media because of their views on Brexit, and searches for those who abuse and intimidate online.

The programme also questions the impact that divisive and aggressive digital campaigning is having on our democracy.

Part-undercover investigation into allegations of lack of care, neglect and mistreatment - past and present - in an adolescent mental health unit in the UK.

A team from ITV's Exposure strand gathers evidence of the Chinese government's work with technology companies, revealing a new form of governance that is controlling citizens and being exported around the world, challenging human freedom and liberal democracy. The film follows the victims of this new system and those who have been detained and worked inside a huge network of detention camps.

Documentary examining the sexual abuse of female victims of crime by police officers, who have used their positions of power to take advantage of the very women they have been sent to help. The programme talks to women who have been victims of predatory police officers, speaking out about their ordeals. Despite strict rules governing how officers deal with victims of crime, hundreds have been convicted or dismissed for sexual misconduct.

This summer more than 6,000 people are estimated to have made perilous journeys across the Channel packed into flimsy dinghies, most intending to claim asylum in the UK. Adnan Sarwar reports on the smuggling gangs making huge profits by putting desperate people onto the English Channel. He unpicks the gangs' operations, identifies the key individuals and reveals the wider network that handles the illegal payments - before finding himself witness to clandestine crossings as they're launched from French beaches.

An investigation into one of the most divisive issues in US politics. Film-maker Deeyah Khan hears from doctors who face an ever-present threat of violence, even murder, from anti-abortion fanatics, a man convicted of bombing clinics and women who face one of the most difficult decisions of their lives in choosing to have an abortion.

Emmy Award-winning director Deeyah Khan investigates what it's like to be a Muslim in a country where many people feel you don't belong. 

Reporter Carlo Lavarini goes undercover to investigate the standards of care and security on medium-secure wards in a hospital run by the Priory Group - one of Britain's biggest care providers. Among the patients are criminals, some of whom have committed serious offences.

Sahar Zand reports as the Exposure strand examines the lucrative trade capitalising upon myths surrounding women's virginity, going undercover to investigate the clinics making money from so-called virginity testing and repair procedures that campaigners condemn as a violation of human rights.

In a film as part of the Exposure strand, journalist Marcel Theroux and Oscar-winning director Jon Blair reveal a dark side to this remote community in the south Atlantic. Shot over the course of three years, the documentary tells stories of suspected murder, a woman's quest for her lost son, and how a team of British detectives brought belated justice to a group of exiled and traumatised residents after a scandal that shook the island to its core.

Ramita Navai exposes the reality of life for women under Taliban rule, secretly filming in a jail where she discovers females being held without trial or charge, their fate often unknown to their families. She uncovers evidence of officials using violence to forcibly marry young girls and accompanies an underground network of female activists on dangerous missions to rescue women hunted by the Taliban.

As the build-up to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar nears its climax, this documentary investigates the human cost that the host nation has put into it. Allegations of foreign labour abuse and unexplained deaths have dogged the organisers of the massive construction projects necessary for the event - at the same time, Qatar has also been accused of putting LGBT football fans and players at risk.

Shahida Tulaganova's documentary tells the story of the war told through the compelling testimonies of 10 Ukrainian children, aged mostly between 6 and 11. Many have spent months living in makeshift basements without access to regular food or water, running from bombs and sniper fire, while have endured incredible journeys fleeing to the west of the country, while others have remained in their homes listening to the sound of explosions all around.

An expose of the misogynistic culture that exists inside many UK police forces. Reporter Julie Etchingham meets former and serving female police officers who have been routinely sexualised, sidelined, and silenced when trying to speak out against male colleagues.

Documentary filmed in secret over the course of a year revealing the extent of the on-going human rights abuses taking place in Iran. Following the death last year of Jina Mahsa Amini after she allegedly flouted the country's strict dress code, Iran erupted into widespread protests. In the wake of this uprising, film-makers for the Exposure strand travelled around the country secretly - and at great personal risk - to meet young women at the heart of the protests, whom the regime still wants silenced.

The story of the search for justice and accountability after a mass grave was discovered last autumn in a forest outside the city of Izium in north-east Ukraine following six months of Russian occupation. This film for the Exposure strand interweaves haunting first-hand survivor accounts of the occupation with access to Ukrainian investigators and secret service agents hunting down the Russians they believe are responsible.

Documentary exploring the human cost of the current British law on assisted dying through the stories of five people who all want the right to die at a time of their choosing, as well as why some feel this is a choice they should never have. This film for the Exposure strand asks if there can be any answer that would satisfy both sides of the contentious assisted dying debate, or whether this delicate issue will remain unresolved in the UK for the foreseeable future.