Countries where athism is punshable by death.

[37818]

http://www.thewire.com/global/2013/1...-death/355961/ (From Dec 2013)

They are all countries governed by Islam in some major way.

[One Bad Pig]

Eh, not just atheism, but any deconversion from Islam.

[37818]

Eh, not just atheism, but any deconversion from Islam.

That is true. Do you suppose other atheists are otherwise safe in those countries?

[Starlight]

http://www.thewire.com/global/2013/1...-death/355961/ (From Dec 2013)

Looking at their map and report, they seem to get over-excited about countries that still have very-old never-enforced blasphemy laws still sitting around on the books. Some of the most atheistic and tolerant countries in the world are marked as having "severe discrimination" due to the presence of never-enforced ancient blasphemy laws.

[One Bad Pig]

Well, historically, Christians have gone long stretches under Muslim rule and been okay, only to suddenly have something like the Armenian genocide break out. If the law is still on the books, it can still be enforced if someone is so inclined.

[Starlight]

If the law is still on the books, it can still be enforced if someone is so inclined.

It depends how the system works. Generally if society is so inclined, they can pass a discriminatory law even if they don't already have one. So what matters more, IMO, is social attitudes.

In general, I don't approve of people claiming "I'm being persecuted! I'm being persecuted!" when they aren't. I mock Christians on this forum when they say that. And I'm going to equally mock atheists when they do the same thing. The link in the OP over-dramaticizes the extent of atheist persecution and discrimination worldwide. It would be interesting, for example, to see a map of countries where someone has been executed, imprisoned, or fined, in the last 30 years simply for being an atheist. What's not interesting is when they find some law that's still on the books from the 1800s that's never been used and nobody's noticed or gotten around to repealing.

[37818]

A recent Atheist blog lists those 13 countries.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/tipplin...able-by-death/

[shunyadragon]

It depends how the system works. Generally if society is so inclined, they can pass a discriminatory law even if they don't already have one. So what matters more, IMO, is social attitudes.

In general, I don't approve of people claiming "I'm being persecuted! I'm being persecuted!" when they aren't. I mock Christians on this forum when they say that. And I'm going to equally mock atheists when they do the same thing. The link in the OP over-dramaticizes the extent of atheist persecution and discrimination worldwide. It would be interesting, for example, to see a map of countries where someone has been executed, imprisoned, or fined, in the last 30 years simply for being an atheist. What's not interesting is when they find some law that's still on the books from the 1800s that's never been used and nobody's noticed or gotten around to repealing.

Source: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/saudi-court-sentences-man-to-10-years-2000-lashes-for-atheist-tweets/

Saudi court sentences man to 10 years, 2,000 lashes for atheist tweets.

A court in Saudi Arabia has handed down a guilty verdict in the case of a professed atheist accused of posting hundreds of tweets denying God’s existence and criticizing religion.

His sentence: a decade in prison, a fine and a flogging.

According to a Saturday report in the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan, the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice — the Saudi religious police force whose duties include monitoring social media — found more than 600 tweets posted by an unnamed 28-year-old dissenter.

According to the report, the man refused to repent for the tweets and said that he had the right to assert his opinions.

In addition to the 10-year prison term, the court sentenced him to pay 20,000 riyals — about $5,330 — and receive a beating consisting of 2,000 lashes. Such floggings are generally broken up into weekly bouts of 50 lashings each and administered according to specific guidelines.

The legal basis of the court’s decision is a series of Interior Ministry regulations introduced in 2014 under the late Saudi King Abdullah.

The laws ostensibly seek to combat terrorism, but also allow authorities “to criminalize virtually any expression or association critical of the government and its understanding of Islam,” according to the New York-based advocacy group Human Rights Watch.

These regulations contain provisions — including one that criminalizes “calling for atheist thought in any form, or calling into question the fundamentals of the Islamic religion on which this country is based” — that Human Rights Watch says have been used to silence activists and peaceful dissidents.

Atheism is a taboo subject in Saudi Arabia, where the government derives legitimacy from its adherence to an ultraconservative form of Islam, but a 2012 WIN/Gallup International poll found that 5 percent of Saudi respondents described themselves as atheists, and anecdotal reports suggest that unbelief may be on the rise in the kingdom.

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Notice this law is recent, 2014, and there are other instances I will cite in recent history.

Many Baha'is have been executed (including women), imprisoned, lost employment, and exiled over recent history under similar laws.

[eider]

A Bahai hotelier that I knew in the 70's travelled to Iran to help his Bahai relatives in distress. He was arrested at the airport terminal and executed in public within the month.

[shunyadragon]

A Bahai hotelier that I knew in the 70's travelled to Iran to help his Bahai relatives in distress. He was arrested at the airport terminal and executed in public within the month.

If he was a known atheist or homosexual the fate would be the same under the law.

[shunyadragon]

Looking at their map and report, they seem to get over-excited about countries that still have very-old never-enforced blasphemy laws still sitting around on the books. Some of the most atheistic and tolerant countries in the world are marked as having "severe discrimination" due to the presence of never-enforced ancient blasphemy laws.

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/04/world/asia/indonesian-who-embraced-atheism-landed-in-prison.html?_r=0

Embrace of Atheism Put an Indonesian in Prison

JAKARTA, Indonesia — Growing up in a conservative Muslim household in rural West Sumatra, Alexander Aan hid a dark secret beginning at age 9: He did not believe in God. His feelings only hardened as he got older and he faked his way through daily prayers, Islamic holidays and the fasting month of Ramadan.

He stopped praying in 2008, when he was 26, and he finally told his parents and three younger siblings that he was an atheist — a rare revelation in a country like Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation. They responded with disappointment and expressions of hope that he would return to Islam.

But Mr. Aan neither returned to Islam nor confined his secret to his family, and he ended up in prison after running afoul of a 2008 law restricting electronic communications. He had joined an atheist Facebook group started by Indonesians living in the Netherlands, and in 2011 he began posting commentaries outlining why he did not think God existed.

“When I saw, with my own eyes, poor people, people on television caught up in war, people who were hungry or ill, it made me uncomfortable,” Mr. Aan, now 32, said in an interview. “What is the meaning of this? As a Muslim, I had questioned God — what is the meaning of God?” He was released on parole on Jan. 27 after serving more than 19 months on a charge of inciting religious hatred.

Indonesia’s state ideology, Pancasila, enshrines monotheism, and blasphemy is illegal. However, the Constitution guarantees freedom of religion and speech, and the country is 16 years into a transition from authoritarianism to democracy.

But Mr. Aan’s case is one of an increasing number of instances of persecution connected to freedom of religion in Indonesia in recent years. Although Indonesia has influential Christian, Hindu and Buddhist minorities, every year there have been hundreds of episodes, including violent attacks, targeting religious minorities like Christians and Shiite and Ahmadiyah Muslims, as well as dozens of arrests over blasphemy against Islam. Numerous churches have been closed for lacking proper permits.

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