Raheel Raza, the President of the Council of Muslims Facing Tomorrow said that as a reform-minded Muslim she needs more defense against people in her own religion who want her dead than she needs celebrities defending her, and “[W]e have a huge problem ahead of us, and if we’re going to be politically correct, and beat around the bush, and deflect from the issue, we won’t be able to address it” on Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time.”

Raza said that she did the appearance because “I thought, ‘Man you need to have some reformist voices on your show.'” And agreed with Maher’s assessment of “everyday terrorism” in “most of the Muslim world” against women, gay people, and bloggers.

After Maher stated, “You do say, I don’t need celebrities defending me. I need defense against people in my own religion who want to kill me.” Raza responded, “Absolutely. and this is going to add to that list, by the way, after seeing me on your show. Just so you know.”

She added, “[I]n terms of women’s rights, according to the same Pew Research poll they found that 37% of the Muslims surveyed said ,that if a wife was unfaithful, or had adultery, or had premarital sex it was okay and acceptable to kill her. So, when you think of that mindset, that’s almost 300 [million] people. … So the numbers are important. The numbers — they’re not to demonize people. They’re not to scare people, but to tell the truth, and to say these are the odds that we [reform-minded Muslims] are up against.”

Raza also agreed with Maher that American Muslims do allow people to leave the religion, or come out of the closet, or refuse to wear a hijab, those options “are not available for most Muslims around the world.”

She added, “[T]here’s a lot of sexual deprivation. There’s a lot of sexual oppression, and it manifests itself in very violent ways.”

Raza later added, “[W]e have a huge problem ahead of us, and if we’re going to be politically correct, and beat around the bush, and deflect from the issue, we won’t be able to address it.”

When the discussion turned to Republican candidate Donald Trump, Raza agreed with Maher that Trump has “very dangerous” ideas about Muslims, but that given a choice between him and a party that won’t say, ‘Islamic terrorism,’ Trump would win, and “things are going to get even worse for Muslims. So it is in their own best interest to come out on the side of principles that are liberal, democratic, Western principles.” She added that Trump is “really fudging that line about civility.”

She concluded, “[P]erhaps Muslim-Americans need to sit together and discuss, what is it that brought this around? Is it that something has been festering for a long time? Is there a problem within the house of Islam? And that is a question that many Muslims don’t want to address.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett