A 30-year-old civil servant named Alexander An may face prison time simply for coming out on Facebook as an atheist and stating, “God doesn’t exist.”
He was apparently have an argument with other locals from his town on Facebook about religion, and later dozens of locals stormed into his place of work and bashed him. What’s even worse is that the police showed up and arrested him!?
He now faces trial for “suspicion of blasphemy against Islam,” and faces a jail term of up to 5-years.
I find it abysmal and disgusting that any country have anti-blasphemy laws. To me it seems completely contradictory. To put laws in place in order to protect your God from mere words, as if he can’t protect himself, should surely be seen as blasphemous in and of itself!? Moreover, the fact that you think you have to protect your religion by law from blasphemy kind of discredits the validity of your religion, not to mention suggests you have some serious insecurities about your faith as well.
Meanwhile, the religious in Indonesia will hold demonstrations asking for their religious freedom to be respected. I think if you want to have freedom of religion, you should also be able to have freedom from religion.
The Western World needs to start offering asylum to people who are persecuted for being atheists, such as Alexander An. If these countries don’t want rational, clear thinking individuals, then we’ll bloody take them! Maybe we should start a campaign for ‘Adopting Atheist Blasphemers‘?
