Online groups of India-based atheists have seen a rise in number in the past decade. In the last five years, the number of online communities made up of ex-Muslims from almost zero to a handful. These groups boast memberships of over 100 people, with one group's membership reaching 300 individuals.
100 members in an online community is a pretty low figure. That is, if you approach the figure from a perspective that does not include the possibility of life-threatening violence and social stigmatization. Being an ex-Muslim has its inherent problems.
On August 3, the High Court of Kano State in Nigeria formally charged Mubarak Bala, an atheist and president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, for causing a public disturbance. The High Court's charges, which come as a highly delayed action, revolves around Bala's Facebook posts which spanned over 2020. The public disturbance charges fall under Kano State Penal Code's sections 114 and 210.
A new Pew Research Center face-to-face survey of around 30 thousand Indian adults conducted in 17 languages between late 2019 and early 2020 (before the COVID pandemic) takes a closer look at religious identity, nationalism, and tolerance in Indian society.
Jackson, Mississippi - The Mississippi Humanist Association, the American Atheists, and three Mississippi residents filed a lawsuit on June 22, 2021. The case is against the State of Mississippi over the lack of an alternative that has no extra costs to its license plates that bear the phrase, "In God We Trust."
According to a recent survey by the Pew Research Center, the majority of the religiously unaffiliated are opposed to the death penalty. Most Americans favor the death penalty despite 78% of them saying there is some risk of innocent people being put to death. Last year, partly due to the pandemic, fewer people were executed in the United States than any other year in the past three decades.
In January 2021, Republican Tennessee State Senator Mark Pody sponsored Senate Joint Resolution 55 to amend Article IX of the Constitution of Tennessee. Article IX has three sections that bar church ministers, atheists, and people who participate or aid a duel from holding any office in the civil department of the state.
The percentage of people not identifying under any religion has been growing in Northern Ireland. According to the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey 2020, on question "Do you regard yourself as belonging to any particular religion?", about 27% of the population identified as non-religious, which is a 7% increase compared to the percentage of non-religious people in 2019.
On April 28th, 2020, Mubarak Bala (age 37), an Ex-Muslim atheist and President of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was apprehended at his home and then taken to the northern state of Kano. There he faced blasphemy accusations from religious figures. Blasphemy is punishable by death in the region where sharia law is enforced on Muslims despite Nigeria’s own Constitution.
