Tuesday, December 10, 2013
In 13 countries around the world, all of them Muslim, people who openly espouse atheism or reject the official state religion of Islam face execution under the law, according to a detailed study issued on Tuesday.
And beyond the Islamic nations,
even some of the West's apparently most democratic governments at best
discriminate against citizens who have no belief in a god and at worst
can jail them for offences dubbed blasphemy, it said.
The
study, The Freethought Report 2013, was issued by the International
Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), a global body uniting atheists,
agnostics and other religious skeptics, to mark United Nations' Human
Rights Day on Tuesday.
"This report
shows that the overwhelming majority of countries fail to respect the
rights of atheists and freethinkers although they have signed U.N
agreements to treat all citizens equally," said IHEU President Sonja
Eggerickx.
The study covered all 192 member states in the world body
and involved lawyers and human rights experts looking at statute books,
court records and media accounts to establish the global situation.
A first survey of 60 countries last year showed just seven where death,
often by public beheading, is the punishment for either blasphemy or
apostasy - renouncing belief or switching to another religion which is
also protected under U.N. accords.
But
this year's more comprehensive study showed six more, bringing the full
list to Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria,
Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and
Yemen.
In others, like India
in a recent case involving a leading critic of religion, humanists say
police are often reluctant or unwilling to investigate murders of
atheists carried out by religious fundamentalists.
Across
the world, the report said, "there are laws that deny atheists' right
to exist, revoke their citizenship, restrict their right to marry,
obstruct their access to public education, prevent them working for the
state...."
Criticism of religious
faith or even academic study of the origins of religions is frequently
treated as a crime and can be equated to the capital offence of
blasphemy, it asserted.
EU STATES OFFEND
The
IHEU, which has member bodies in some 50 countries and supporters in
many more where such organisations are banned, said there was systematic
or severe discrimination against atheists across the 27-nation European
Union.
The situation was severe in Austria, Denmark, Germany,
Greece, Hungary, Malta and Poland where blasphemy laws allow for jail
sentences up to three years on charges of offending a religion or
believers.
In these and all other
EU countries, with the exception of the Netherlands and Belgium which
the report classed as "free and equal," there was systemic
discrimination across society favouring religions and religious
believers.
In the United States,
it said, although the situation was "mostly satisfactory" in terms of
legal respect for atheists' rights, there were a range of laws and
practices "that equate being religious with being American."
In Latin America and the Caribbean, atheists faced systemic discrimination in most countries except Brazil, where the situation was "mostly satisfactory," and Jamaica and Uruguay which the report judged as "free and equal."
Across
Africa, atheists faced severe or systemic violations of their rights to
freedom of conscience but also grave violations in several countries,
including Egypt, Libya and Morocco, and nominally Christian Zimbabwe and
Eritrea. (Reported by Robert Evans; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)