I first mentioned Alexander Aan in my Valentine’s day post then, again, in my follow-ups post. For those that don’t remember, Alexander Aan is an Indonesian who posted a Facebook message that simply said, “God doesn’t exist.” That post was all it took for him to be arrested and for some Muslims to call for his execution.
In Indonesia there are only six religions that you may follow, atheism is not one of them. As The Guardian reports, Aan now faces up to 11 years in jail, five for “insulting a major religion” and a further six for using the internet to spread his “blasphemy.” His lawyers are not confident that they will get him cleared and hope primarily to lessen his sentence.
Although it will probably not help much you can lend support through Facebook or an online petition.
This is terrible! Thanks for spreading the word. I signed the petition and posted on facebook. Its outrageous
It is. Hopefully the petitions will have some sort of effect but, as they have no real power, that’s probably unlikely. Still, it’s hard to do nothing when someone faces jail time for something so small as this that should really not be a crime.
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