According to Legit and The Cable Mubarak Bala has been freed, “Initially sentenced to 24 years in 2022, Bala’s term was reduced following an appellate court decision deeming it excessive“.
According to a BBC report on Tuesday, Bala is being housed in a secure location due to alleged threats of harm against him.
“The freedom is here but also, there is an underlying threat that I will now have to face, probably all those years those threats are maybe out there while I was under the security system. The concern about my safety is always there,” Bala said.
When asked about his guilty plea in 2022, Bala said his motivation was to protect himself and others connected to the situation.
“I believe that what I did then was saving not only my life but people in the state and especially those that were attached to my case, because they were also targets,” he said.
On August 9, 2020, HumanistFreedoms.com published our first article about Mubarak Bala. At that time, we featured Wole Soyinka’s all-too-prophetic condemnation of the Nigerian government’s treatment of Bala:
“When I accepted the International Humanist Award at the World Humanist Congress in 2014, I spoke of the conflict between Humanists and Religionists; one of enlightenment versus the chains of enslavement. Your arbitrary incommunicado detention over the last 100 days is the cruel reality of this conflict. All too often these chains of enslavement lead directly to the gallows or a prison cell.“
On April 5, 2022 – the Kano High State Court sentence Bala to 24 years imprisonment following a guilty plea to 18 charges blasphemy and public incitement. As the president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, Mubarak Bala is a prisoner of religious tyranny.
BBC Africa has recently published a documentary titled “The Cost of Being an Atheist” which carries a terrible reminder of just how correct Wole Soyinka’s words were. Too often and far too readily, tyrants curtail free speech with arbitrary actions which lead to prison cells and worse.
Mubarak Bala is a chemical process engineer. A husband. A father. He and his family deserve better than this. They don’t just deserve better – they had a fundamental right to better.
And so does every living person, regardless of the country they live in or the beliefs or non-beliefs that they may have. That’s why the freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of religion (including freedom from religion) are called Fundamental Freedoms.
Citations and References
- https://humanists.international/2020/08/wole-soyinka-sends-message-of-solidarity-to-mubarak-bala/
- https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/aug/06/wole-soyinka-protests-imprisonment-of-nigerian-humanist-mubarak-bala
- https://freemubarakbala.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wole_Soyinka
- https://www.legit.ng/nigeria/1634435-muslim-man-turned-atheist-arrested-blasphemy-finally-regained-freedom-speaks/
- https://www.thecable.ng/my-life-is-still-at-risk-mubarak-bala-speaks-after-release-from-jail-for-blasphemy/
The views, opinions and analyses expressed in the articles on Humanist Freedoms are those of the contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the publishers.
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