Blasphemy
The right to blaspheme is fundamental—and it’s under attack.

The right to blaspheme is fundamental—and it’s under attack.

In as many as 33 Muslim-majority countries today, most of which have Islam as their state religion, daring simply to speak out against religious customs, express one’s lack of belief, or otherwise say anything deemed offensive by religious authorities is enough to brand one a criminal. If victims are lucky, they might live in purportedly “lenient” countries and get off with a fine and a brief prison sentence. If they are unlucky, they may live in one of the roughly dozen countries in which either blasphemy or apostasy (leaving Islam) is a capital offense. That is, if violent fundamentalist militants don’t find them before the state does.

But even outside the Muslim world, intolerance for those who speak freely about Islamic doctrine is endemic. While apostates can be put to physical death in several Muslim-majority countries, they can face social death in the West, frequently cut off from friends and family and even sometimes subject to abuse.

What you need to know
Muslim-majority countries where blasphemy or apostasy is punishable by death
12
Muslim-majority countries known to criminalize blasphemy or apostasy
33
Cases of blasphemy-related persecution cataloged in our Persecution Tracker
500+
How we address this issue
Persecution Tracker
Our Persecution Tracker catalogs and monitors cases of persecution and oppression against those who commit the "crime" of speaking their minds and blaspheming Islam in secular and theocratic countries alike.
Apostate Report
Our Apostate Report, a survey of hundreds of American and Canadian ex-Muslims, offers a glimpse into the experiences and beliefs of apostates in the West—from encounters with misogyny to their science-based objections to religious belief.
WikiIslam
Our maintenance of WikiIslam is aimed at providing an objective, but skeptical, resource on Islam, including its historic relationship with science and gender equality. Free from the gatekeeping of religious authorities, it encourages readers to draw their own conclusions, however “blasphemous” they may be.
Dissent Dispatch
Our weekly newsletter, the Dissent Dispatch, keeps you up to date on EXMNA news and events, as well as our take on global developments relevant to ex-Muslims and freethinkers.
Mini-Documentaries
Our mini-documentaries spotlight the experiences of real ex-Muslims and their encounters with rejection, abuse, and sexism as a result of questioning and leaving Islam.
What we advocate for
Ex-Muslims of North America advocates for the following policy actions in defense of the right to blaspheme:
All blasphemy laws, no matter how punitive or lax, must be abolished.
In countries where this is not the case, religious belief—and particularly lack thereof—must be granted protected legal status.
States which cast themselves as explicitly Islamic must secularize.
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