Irreligion in Yemen

Irreligion in Yemen is uncommon among Yemenis, as Islam is the predominant faith.[1] It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in Yemen, as they are not officially counted in the census of the country. There is a great stigma attached to being an atheist in Yemen, so many Yemeni atheists communicate with each other via the internet.[1]

The punishment for leaving Islam in Yemen is the death penalty.[1][2][3][4]

Persecution by Muslims

In response to the 2013 Sana'a attack, a Yemeni woman from Bajil in Hudaydah declared converting from Islam to Christianity and immediately, the government put her under investigations, after a chance timeout, sent her to a psychiatric hospital.[5][6] By the end of 2013, a new page was founded on the Facebook and encouraging non-religious Yemenis to show up and not to get afraid of the wild community reaction.[7]

There has been also a broad misconception between secularism and atheism or even being non religious, many activists were kidnapped due to that confusion, examples including the following events:

  • On 4 September 2015 a secular activist named Anwar Al-Wazir was kidnapped in Taiz in front of his family for being secular.[8][9]
  • On 26 April 2016 a 17 year old activist named Omar Bataweel was accused for atheism and killed in Aden. One of his famous quotes was "They accuse me of atheism! Oh you people, I see God in the flowers, and you see Him in the graveyards, that is the difference between me and you".[10][11]
  • On 15 May, 2017 Amjad Abdulrahman, a friend of Omar, was also murdered in Aden for apostasy. His family was prevented from burying him in his area and from doing Muslim funeral prayer.[12][13][14]
  • on 5 Sept, 2020 an 18 year old named Luai Saddam, found dead in his home just after one day of his controversial facebook post. A picture showed him with a rope around his neck as if he commit suicide while it is suspected he was murdered due to his anti religion posts.[15][16]

See also

References

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