The "Reluctant Activist": Being Outed as an Atheist in a Muslim-Majority Country

Secular Rescue’s mission is predominantly rooted in protecting emboldened atheist activists whose lives have become the targets of extremists because of public or social-media based human rights advocacy. It is relatively easy to spot an activist from a sideliner: nearly all or a majority of activist writing focuses on the inhumanity of hateful intolerance against those who choose no religion over some faith. However, many of those who seek emergency assistance from the Center for Inquiry’s Secular Rescue program are deemed “reluctant activists”: those who do not intentionally engage in public advocacy for freedom of conscience or the freedom to not believe in God but nevertheless become de facto activists.

Such is the case of Ali, a young Tunisian ex-Muslim who was outed in his community, in a public way, as an apostate from Islam. He didn’t deny it and continued to try to live a secular life but was persistently harassed and unable to find work—declined because of his atheism. Like most atheists in Muslim-majority countries, early threats came from family: he was threatened with expulsion from his family home due to his beliefs and the local Muslim community’s pressure on the family, and his father subsequently stopped paying for his university fees and cut him off from interaction with the family.

Ali was subjected to threats of death and injury and was nearly ambushed in the street by would-be assailants who made threatening comments about him being an infidel; his dog was poisoned and killed; later, another poisoning attempt was made on his new dog. His computer was vandalized at school, and other students began shunning and making threatening comments about infidels in class, so he spent a lot of time in isolation feeling fear and anger.

https://centerforinquiry.org/news/the-reluctant-activist-being-outed-as-an-atheist-in-a-muslim-majority-country/