Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy Codes Are Choking Freedom Worldwide

by Paul Marshall

  While this case appears to stem from nationalistic rather than religious motives, in Turkey, the two can overlap, and Dink’s alleged insult to Turkey appears also to have been construed by his killer as an insult to Islam. His Christianity, which had both Armenian Orthodox and Armenian evangelical influences, may also have been a factor. Immediately after shooting Dink, Samast shouted, “I shot the non-Muslim.”53 Additionally, Yasin Hayal, who was arrested for inciting Samast to kill Dink, had an alleged history of militant Islamic activity.54

  Erhan Tuncel, an informant and suspect in the case, had provided Trabzon police with information on the plot to kill Dink, but the police never followed up on it. Both Istanbul and Trabzon police have been accused of failing to use that information to prevent the murder, though they were acquitted of any legal wrongdoing. At Samast’s initial arrest, police detained him in a tearoom rather than a prison cell. Stranger still, they lined up to have their photos taken with him, holding a calendar that read, “The soil of the motherland is holy, and it will not be abandoned.”55 As the trial progressed, possible links to the infamous Ergenekon have been alleged.

  Along with Hrant Dink and Orhan Pamuk, other Turkish intellectuals, and especially authors, have come under fire for writings that supposedly insult Islam. In May 2009, novelist Nedim Gursel was charged under Article 216 with “humiliating religious values and inciting religious hatred” in his novel Allah’in Kizlari (Daughters of Allah). In an unusual twist, Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs presented testimony against the defendant, stating that his work “insults not only Islam but also all celestial religions and caused disintegration in society.” Gursel repeatedly emphasized that his book was fictitious, that it was not intended to offend, and that he himself was respectful of religious values. In fact, the case lacked almost any foundation, since the prosecution itself said that there was no evidence suggesting that Gursel’s book had actually incited hatred. On June 25, 2009, Gursel was acquitted. He commented, “For an author to be prosecuted for a novel does not suit the Turkish Republic.” He went on to say that his case showed a bizarre disconnect between the values espoused in Turkey’s constitution and the realistic experience of its citizens.56

  In October 2006, Hakan Tastan and Turan Topal, two Christian converts from Islam, were also charged under Article 301 for “insulting Turkishness,” for inciting religious hatred under Article 216, and for compiling data on private citizens under Article 135. The charges were based on trips the two men had taken to Silivri to meet a teacher and a group of high-school students who had asked for a visit in connection with an Istanbul-based Bible correspondence course. The accusations against them included forming illegal cell groups, possessing weapons, promising money and jobs and education for conversion, and procuring sexual relationships with teenage girls to induce young men to convert. Tastan and Topal denied all of these charges.57 Even the state prosecutor assisting the judge stated that there was “not a single concrete, credible piece of evidence” for the allegations. Moreover, all of the three accusing parties contradicted themselves in testimony. In July 2007, the two were additionally charged with “illegal collection of funds,” but, once again, no substantive evidence was produced. In February 2009, the Ministry of Justice issued a decision saying the trial would continue under the revised version of Article 301.58 There was a hearing on January 28, 2010, but it lasted only a few minutes since the prosecution failed to produce key witnesses.59

  Evangelistic activity is actually legal under Turkish law. Indeed, the constitution protects the right to choose or change one’s religion, as well the right to share it with others. However, a senior official in the justice ministry has referred to “missionary activity” as “more dangerous than terrorism,” and the General Staff of the Directorate of Religious Affairs publicly labeled religious minorities “an internal threat, a danger and an enemy.”60 In one of the sermons that it issued to local mosques, the Directorate of Religious Affairs claimed in March 2005 that modern-day crusaders were attempting “[to exploit] ethnic differences and economic and political hardship to entice our children” and “[to] sever our people’s links to Islam.”61

  Protestant churches, which are relatively new to Turkish society, and several of which are led by pastors who were formerly Muslims, have seen an increase in violence in recent years. Pastor Mehmet Sahin Coban, of a Protestant church in Odemis, was assaulted in May 2007; his church had previously been firebombed. In these and other cases, there has been little or no police response, and the Protestant community in Turkey has complained to Parliament about the neglect.62 In August 2009, police rescued Ismail Aydin, whose organization seeks to spread knowledge of Christianity, after he was kidnapped at knifepoint by a man who declared, “[T]his missionary dog is trying to divide the country.”63

  Alevis

  Of those whose beliefs deviate from the state’s version of Islam, the ones who have experienced the most widespread problems (albeit less violence in recent years) are the Alevis. This Muslim group combines elements of both Sunni and Shia Islam, while having its own distinctive features in oratory, poetry, and dance. It also allows men and women to worship together. Even though Alevis form approximately a quarter of Turkey’s population, they are not formally recognized, their houses of worship are not recognized as such, and their beliefs are treated as a cultural rather than as a religious matter by the Ministry of Education. Alevis have brought more than 4,000 court cases alleging discrimination for the state’s failure to incorporate their beliefs into the compulsory religious education.64 In addition, the Diyanet, or Directorate of Religious Affairs, funds the salaries of Sunni imams, as well as other costs associated with Sunni practice, but excludes Alevi practitioners.65

  The deadliest attack against Alevis in past decades took place in 1978, when violent mobs laid siege to the southeastern town of Karamanmaras, where, after a week of killing, raping, and looting, 111 Alevis were killed, thousands were injured, and much of the town was destroyed.66 But Alevis have also suffered violence more recently. In 1993, thirty-seven people died when non-Alevi protesters coming from Friday prayers set fire to a hotel hosting an Alevi cultural festival. Police reportedly stood by and watched. In 1995, police were suspected of collusion with gunmen who targeted five teahouses in a poor Alevi neighborhood, an incident that sparked demonstrations that turned into riots, during which police shot and killed sixteen people.67

  In February 2009, an Alevi family sued the Muratpasa district governorship to obtain an exemption for their daughter from attending religious classes. Although a 1990 court decision had restricted exemption to Christian and Jewish students, the Turkish court ruled in favor of the Alevis based on Article 24 of the Turkish constitution, which provides freedom of religion, and also on Article 9 of Europe’s Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. It is hoped that this case may open the way for other changes; embodying this hope on November 8, 2009, tens of thousands of Alevis demonstrated for equal rights.

  On February 2, 2010, in another closely watched case, the European Court of Human Rights ruled, again on the basis of Article 9, that Sinan Iş1k, who in 2004 had asked that his identity card list his religion as Alevi rather than as Islam, had his religious freedom violated when this was not allowed. The court went further and held that “the violation in question does not lie in the rejection of the plaintiff’s demand to specify his Alevi faith on his identity card, but in the mentioning, obligatory or optional, of religion on the cards.” Even though since 2006, Turks have been allowed to leave the religion section of the identity card blank, the court ordered the removal of the section itself.68

  Yemen

  Yemen is beset by unrest from a dozen rival political parties, conservative tribal groups, secessionist activists, Iranian-backed Shias, and Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula—all operating inside the borders. The population of twenty-one million is about 70 percent Sunni Muslim, 30 percent Shia Muslim (Zaydi), 0.1 percent Shia Muslim (Ismai
li), and 0.1 percent Christian/Jewish/Hindu. Although it affirms adherence to the United Nations’ Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Yemen’s constitution stipulates that sharia law is the basis of all legislation.69

  Article 103 of Yemen’s 1990 Press and Publications Law prescribes fines and up to a year in prison for publication of anything that “prejudices the Islamic faith.”70 Baha’is and Jews have been under increased threat.71 In June 2008, three Iranian, one Iraqi, and two Yemeni Baha’is were arrested and detained for suspected proselytism in a manner “incompatible with Yemeni law.” It is also inhospitable to converts. In July 2000, a Yemeni court gave Mohammad Omer Haji, a Somali refugee and Christian convert, seven days to either return to Islam or be executed. Thanks to international pressure, he, together with his wife and infant child, found asylum in New Zealand. There were further arrests of converts in 2005, 2008, and 2009. On June 14, 2009, armed men kidnapped nine foreigners working at a hospital in Saada, reportedly because of rumors that they were Christian missionaries engaged in proselytizing.72

  As elsewhere, not only non-Muslims or converts suffer under blasphemy and apostasy laws. In 2002, Samir al-Yusufi, editor of the newspaper Al-Thaqafiya, was charged with apostasy because his paper had serialized a book deemed blasphemous. The Ministry of Culture said the book, Open City, by Mohammed Abdelwali, used religious terms to describe sexual scenes and ordered it confiscated for insulting religion. The judge, for reasons that are not entirely clear, also banned reporting on the trial. The case was later dismissed at the intervention of “high-ranking officials.”73 Three other newspapers, the Yemen Observer, Al-Hurriya, and Al Rai Al Aam, were closed down for six months in February 2006 for republishing the Danish Jylland-Posten cartoons. The journalists and editors were imprisoned for a year and banned from writing for six months after their release. The prosecution had originally requested the death penalty. The prime minister ordered the newspapers to reopen in May 2006.74 On March 21, 2010, in response to proposed legislation that would make marriage illegal for those under the age of seventeen, several leading Muslim scholars said that those people who were pushing for a ban on child brides were apostates.75

  Closing

  Middle East countries are diverse in their practices and their reasons for religious repression. Some, such as Morocco, are comparatively free; some, such as Algeria and Turkey, are relatively secular. Yet despite their greater freedom or secularity, these three countries, like others in the area, continue to punish blasphemy and apostasy offenses.76 There also appears to be an increase in repression in the area.

  As noted, Turkey’s approach is unique. With somewhat tortured logic, even though Turkey’s constitution forbids it to be established on religious principles, the state dictates the content of mosque sermons, and a purported insult to Islam can be prosecuted on the nationalist ground that it is an insult to the Turkish nation. Promoting enmity based on religion can bring about a prison term. The targets of these laws, as well as the targets of sectarian violence encouraged by such laws, include journalists, novelists, intellectuals, and Christians. As is the case in many other Muslim-majority countries, there also appears to be growth in Islamist radicalism. The brutal murder in 2007 of the two converts from Islam to Christianity may well have been the first such sectarian killing since the founding of the Turkish Republic.77

  8

  Africa

  On February 20, 2006, Florence Chuckwu, a Christian high school teacher in the capital of Nigeria’s Bauchi state, was nearly killed after a student accused her of blasphemy. The area was already tense because of riots over the publication of the Danish cartoons. When Chuckwu noticed that one of her students was reading during her lecture and refused to stop, Chuckwu confiscated the book until after class, unaware that it was the Qur’an. The Muslim students in the class began to throw books at her and one shouted, “Kill her!” By the time her colleagues came to her rescue, she had already sustained serious head injuries. The students rioted and, in the ensuing frenzy, more than twenty Christians were killed and two churches burned down. Soldiers from the 33rd Artillery Field Brigade, in whose barracks the school is located, eventually dispersed the rioters. Chuckwu’s present whereabouts are unknown.1

  Musa Mohammed Yusuf, a fifty-five-year-old Somali, was the leader of an underground church in Yonday village, twenty miles from Kismayo. On February 20, 2009, members of Somalia’s radical Islamist group al-Shebab arrived at his house to question him about Salat Mberwa, the head of another Christian fellowship. After being questioned, Yusuf fled to Kismayo. The next day the interrogators returned and, when told by his wife, Batula Ali Arbow, that Yusuf had fled, seized the couple’s three sons—eleven-year-old Abdi Rahaman Musa Yusuf, twelve-year-old Hussein Musa Yusuf, and seven-year-old Abdulahi Musa Yusuf. The terrified mother later said, “I knew they were going to be slaughtered. Just after some few minutes I heard a wailing cry from Abdulahi (who was) running toward the house…” Batula fainted, and when she regained consciousness, she learned that two of her sons, Abdi and Hussein, had been beheaded.2

  In 1992, the Kordofan state government in Sudan declared jihad on the Muslim and Christian people of the Nuba Mountains in central Sudan. In 1993, six government-sponsored Muslim clerics in Kordofan issued a fatwa in support of the jihad and declared: “An insurgent who was previously a Muslim is now an apostate; and a non-Muslim is a non-believer standing as a bulwark against the spread of Islam, and Islam has granted the freedom of killing both of them.”3 This fatwa declared that the Nuba non-Muslims could be wiped out, as they were barriers to Islam, and that Nuba Muslims were now apostates who not only could be, but also should be, killed. Hence, half a million people were sentenced to death. Between May 1992 and February 1993, over 60,000 Nuba had already reportedly been killed and many of their villages burned to the ground. Death squads targeted community leaders and intellectuals in particular, so that the Nuba would remain without a voice. The army and Popular Defense Force also disrupted trade and marketplaces to produce a famine that would wipe out tens of thousands more Nuba. These conditions continued through the 1990s and, by 1998, prompted human rights and refugee aid groups to identify the Nuba mountain region as a target of genocide.

  Introductory Remarks

  In much of Africa, Islam draws on Sufi traditions, and in the past, levels of religious violence have been relatively low. However, as elsewhere in the world, there has been an increased radicalization that has led to more frequent accusations of blasphemy and apostasy, and to ensuing violence.4 To illustrate this, we will outline three countries—Nigeria, Somalia, and Sudan.

  Nigeria, by population the largest country in Africa, has, in recent decades, been ripped apart by violence between Muslims and Christians—sometimes triggered by blasphemy and apostasy allegations—that have cost thousands of lives. More than anywhere else in the world, many people are killed because of rumors of blasphemy taking place far beyond its borders, even in Denmark or Bangladesh. There has been comparatively little state religious repression, though there has been discrimination. The major threat is from mob violence, and the victims include not only those accused but often also their coreligionists.

  Somalia has no functioning central government, and religious violence is perpetrated by quasi-state militias and mobs. One goal has been the extermination of Somalia’s Christians, who have been targeted by the Al-Qaeda-linked Al-Shabab movement. While Al-Shabab is the worst, the country’s other radical movements also attack anyone that differs from their version of Islam, including some Sufis. Due to this violence and the ceaseless warring between armed factions, Somalia may be the most religiously repressive country in the world.

  Sudan is the largest African country in area. Its predominantly Muslim North has laws governing apostasy and blasphemy, and it has been the site of some of the world’s most significant blasphemy incidents. These have occurred against the backdrop of a twenty-year civil war triggered in the mid-1980s in part because the Islamist government sought to impo
se an extreme form of sharia on the South, which is largely populated by Christians and followers of traditional African religions, thus sparking a rebellion. Over two million were killed in that conflict before a fragile peace was established by the comprehensive peace agreement of 2005. Conflict reaching genocidal proportions also began in 2003 in Darfur, in the West, though that does not appear to be tied to government interference in religious matters. One of the most notorious blasphemy incidents was Sudan’s execution of Mohamed Mahmoud Taha, a prominent Muslim intellectual and political leader. There have also been blasphemy-related death threats against UN Special Rapporteurs and government-backed pronouncements declaring that half a million people, the Nuba, should be killed as apostates. South Sudan gained independence in July 2011, amidst great insecurity.

  Nigeria

  With an oil-rich delta, a relatively recent transition from military rule, and by far the largest population (over 130 million) in Africa comprising over 250 ethnic groups, Nigeria would face an uphill battle for stability, peace, and religious freedom even without its religious differences. But those differences can be deadly. The country is almost equally divided between Muslims and Christians, with about 10 percent of the population retaining traditional beliefs. Muslims are the majority in the North, Christians are the majority in the South, and the two are mixed in the middle belt, which is often the scene of violent conflict. Such outbreaks have tribal and regional dimensions and involve issues of political power, land, and resources, but there is also persistent religious tension. Since 1999, sharia law has been imposed in many northern states, which has increased tensions and led to thousands of deaths.5