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Apostasy is the formal disaffiliation from, abandonment of, or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion that is contrary to one's previous religious beliefs. One who undertakes apostasy is known as an apostate. Undertaking apostasy is called apostatizing. The term apostasy is used by sociologists to mean the renunciation and criticism of, or opposition to, a person's former religion, in a technical sense, with no pejorative connotation.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an Islamic absolute monarchy in which Sunni Islam is the official state religion based on firm Sharia law. Non-Muslims must practice their religion in private and are vulnerable to discrimination and arrest. While no law requires all citizens to be Muslim, non-Muslim foreigners attempting to acquire Saudi Arabian nationality must convert to Islam. Children born to Muslim fathers are by law deemed Muslim, and conversion from Islam to another religion is considered apostasy and punishable by death. Blasphemy against Sunni Islam is also punishable by death, but the more common penalty is a long prison sentence; there have been 'no confirmed reports of executions for either apostasy or blasphemy' in the 21st century.
Human rights in Saudi Arabia are a topic of concern and controversy. The Saudi government, which mandates both Muslim and non-Muslim observance of Islamic law under the absolute rule of the House of Saud, has been accused of and denounced by various international organizations and governments for violating human rights within the country. The authoritarian regime ruling the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is consistently ranked among the "worst of the worst" in Freedom House's annual survey of political and civil rights.
Apostasy in Islam is commonly defined as the abandonment of Islam by a Muslim, in thought, word, or through deed. It includes not only explicit renunciations of the Islamic faith by converting to another religion or abandoning religion, but also blasphemy or heresy by those who consider themselves Muslims, through any action or utterance which implies unbelief, including those who deny a "fundamental tenet or creed" of Islam, . An apostate from Islam is known as a murtadd (مرتدّ).
Quran desecration is the treatment of the Quran in a way that might be considered insulting.
In Islam, blasphemy is impious utterance or action concerning God, but is broader than in normal English usage, including not only the mocking or vilifying of attributes of Islam but denying any of the fundamental beliefs of the religion. Examples include denying that the Quran was divinely revealed, the Prophethood of one of the Islamic prophets, insulting an angel, or maintaining God had a son.
Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia is a legal penalty. Death sentences are almost exclusively based on the system of judicial sentencing discretion (tazir), following the classical principle of avoiding Sharia-prescribed (hudud) penalties when possible. In recent decades, the government and the courts have increasingly issued these sentences, reacting to a rise in violent crime during the 1970s. This paralleled similar developments in the U.S. and Mainland China in the late 20th century.
Islam is the state religion of Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia's laws are an amalgam of rules from Sharia, royal decrees, royal ordinances, other royal codes and bylaws, fatwas from the Council of Senior Scholars and custom and practice.
Hamza Kashgari Mohamad Najeeb is a Saudi poet and a former columnist for the Saudi daily newspaper Al-Bilad. In 2011, he was on a Mabahith watchlist of pro-democracy activists.
Irreligion in Saudi Arabia is difficult to measure as it is illegal to leave the Islamic faith in the country. Most atheists in Saudi Arabia communicate with each other via the internet.
Raif bin Muhammad Badawi is a Saudi writer, dissident and activist, as well as the creator of the website Free Saudi Liberals.
According to a study by Humanists International (HI), Afghanistan is one of the seven countries in the world where being an atheist or a convert can lead to a death sentence. According to the 2012 WIN-Gallup Global Index of Religion and Atheism report, Afghanistan ranks among the countries where people are least likely to admit to being an atheist.
Mariam [Meriam] Yahia Ibrahim Ishag or Maryam Yaḥyā Ibrahīm Isḥaq, is a Sudanese religious freedom activist and public speaker. Meriam Ibrahim was arrested during her second pregnancy for apostasy and gave birth to a girl in prison on 27 May 2014. Mariam Ibrahim's case is part of a wider problem of persecution of Christians in Sudan.
Ashraf Fayadh is an artist and poet of Palestinian origin. He is the son of refugees from Khan Yunis in the Gaza Strip and lives in Saudi Arabia. He was active in the British-Arabian arts organization, Edge of Arabia, and organized exhibitions of Saudi art in Europe and Saudi Arabia. In November 2015, he was sentenced to death by beheading for apostasy. The Saudi court overturned the death sentence three months later, imposing an eight-year prison term with 800 lashes.
Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir is a Mauritanian blogger who was a political prisoner from 2014 to 2019. He was sentenced to death after he wrote an article critical of Islam and the caste system in Mauritania, after which he became a designated prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International. He now lives in exile in France due to concerns for his safety.
Capital punishment for offenses is allowed by law in some countries. Such offenses include adultery, apostasy, blasphemy, corruption, drug trafficking, espionage, fraud, homosexuality and sodomy, perjury, prostitution, sorcery and witchcraft, theft, and treason.
The 2017–2020 Qatif unrest was a phase of conflict in the Qatif region of Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia, between Saudi security forces and the local Shia community, that arose sporadically starting in 1979, including a series of protests and repression during the 2011–12 Saudi Arabian protests.
The Qatif conflict is a modern phase of sectarian tensions and violence in Eastern Arabia between Arab Shia Muslims and Arab Sunni majority, which has ruled Saudi Arabia since early 20th century. The conflict encompasses civil unrest which has been sporadically happened since the 1979 uprising, pro-democracy and pro-human rights protests and occasional armed incidents, which increased in 2017 as part of the 2017–20 Qatif unrest.
The situation for apostates from Islam varies markedly between Muslim-minority and Muslim-majority regions. In Muslim-minority countries, "any violence against those who abandon Islam is already illegal". But in some Muslim-majority countries, religious violence is "institutionalised", and "hundreds and thousands of closet apostates" live in fear of violence and are compelled to live lives of "extreme duplicity and mental stress."
References
- ↑ Wootson, Cleve (27 April 2017). "A Saudi man has been sentenced to death after insulting the prophet Muhammad on Twitter". Washington Post. Retrieved 2017-04-30.
- 1 2 McKernan, Bethan (2017-04-26). "Man 'sentenced to death' for being an atheist by Saudi Arabia" . The Independent. Archived from the original on 2017-04-26. Retrieved 2017-04-30.
- ↑ Pearce, Jonathan (2017-04-27). "Saudi Man Sentenced to Death for Atheism: Memetic Failsafes". A Tippling Philosopher. Retrieved 2017-04-30.
- ↑ ""مرتد حفر الباطن" يواجه إمكانية الإعدام وسط جدل واسع في السعودية". eremnews.com (in Arabic). 2017-04-25. Retrieved 2020-01-14.
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