Nigerian humanist jailed for 24 years after pleading guilty to blasphemy

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Nigerian humanist jailed for 24 years after pleading guilty to blasphemy

Mubarak Bala’s case seen as part of a clampdown on critics of religious orthodoxy in a deeply conservative region

Emmanuel Akinwotu, west Africa correspondent
Tue 5 Apr 2022 17.37 BST
Last modified on Tue 5 Apr 2022 19.40 BST

A prominent Nigerian humanist has been sentenced to 24 years in prison after pleading guilty to blasphemy charges, in a landmark case that has put a new focus on the threats to freedom of expression in the west African country.

Mubarak Bala, the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was sentenced on Tuesday afternoon, two years after his arrest at his home in the northern Kaduna state on 28 April 2020. He was then taken to neighbouring Kano, where calls for action against him had been made by members of the religious establishment in the majority Muslim and conservative state.

Bala, the son of a religious scholar in Kano, is an atheist who had been an outspoken religious critic in a staunchly conservative region. He faced death threats and calls for him to be tried for blasphemy after he posted comments critical of Islam on Facebook in April 2020.

In court on Tuesday, to the surprise of his legal team, Bala requested to change his plea to guilty, one of his lawyers said. “Just suddenly, he changed his plea and pleaded guilty to the whole 18-count charges … We were in shock.”

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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/05/nigerian-humanist-mubarak-bala-receives-24-year-jail-sentence