#Other countries : Nigerian atheist activist, Muhammad Mubarak Bala, was sentenced to 24 years in prison on Tuesday for blasphemy by a court in northern Nigeria, media reports.
Muhammad Mubarak Bala, 37, and president of the Humanists Association of Nigeria, was arrested in April 2020 for writing Facebook posts criticizing Islam and the Prophet, the sources said.
The court ruled that these messages might undermine public order in the conservative Muslim north of Nigeria, where sharia is applied alongside common law.
At trial, Bala pleaded guilty, begging “mercy and leniency” from the court.
“The purpose of my publications was not to cause violence, but I realized that they might cause it. I will be careful in the future,” said the defendant during the hearing.
