By Gideon Long

LONDON (Reuters) - Scores of secularists will gather in London on Saturday for a new awards ceremony which organisers say is necessary to combat an alarming rise in religious meddling in public life.

Eight people have been nominated for the inaugural "Secularist of the Year" award, which will be presented at a central London hotel.

They include a leading theatre director who has fought religious censorship in the arts, an illusionist who has used his TV shows to debunk spiritualism and several campaigners against Islamic governments in the Middle East.

They also include Somali-born Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, who has highlighted violence against Muslim women.

She wrote the script for "Submission", the film made by Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh, who was shot dead in Amsterdam in 2004 by a Muslim who regarded him as an "enemy of Islam".

The award is being presented by the National Secular Society, which has campaigned against what it sees as religious interference in British life since its foundation in 1866.

"We're trying to raise awareness of the incursion of religion into all our lives," the society's vice-president Terry Sanderson told Reuters.

"Ten years ago our organisation had atrophied because people thought our job was done and British society has been secularised," he said.

"But since then Britain has gone backwards at a most alarming rate, particularly since 9/11," he said, referring to the attacks on the United States in September 2001.

"Our membership has increased at a rate of knots. It's a clear reaction against the religionisation of Britain."

He cited an increase in the number of faith schools and a government proposal to toughen the laws on religious hatred as evidence of the creeping influence of religion in Britain.

As in most Western countries, religion has had a higher profile since September 11, 2001.

The country's 1.8 million Muslims say they have been subjected to greater abuse, but as a community they have also been much more vocal.

Evangelical Christianity appears to be gaining strength, as in the United States, but the extent to which Britain is a Christian society is disputed.

Among those nominated for Saturday's prize are Nicholas Hytner, director of Britain's National Theatre, who came under fire for staging the musical "Jerry Springer -- The Opera", which many Christians regard as blasphemous.

Other nominees include Azam Kamguian and Maryam Namazie, Iranian women who have campaigned for women's rights in the Middle East and against Tehran's clerical rule.

Perhaps the most surprising nominee is Derren Brown, a British illusionist who has used his "Mind Games" television programmes to cast a sceptical eye over the world of seances and paranormal phenomena.

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