#ExMuslim – Update on Nigerian Man Held in Mental Home for Renouncing Islam

Yesterday, BN brought you the story of Mubarak Bala, a young Nigerian man who claims he is being held against his will at a mental institution because he declared he is now an atheist. If you missed the story.

Bala says he comes from a Muslim family in Kano, and his father is a Muslim leader.

A lot of media outlets including The Independent UK have picked up on the story and helping shed more light.

Mubarak who goes by the name ExMuslim on Twitter, is a 29-year-old chemical engineering graduate. He was admitted into the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital on June 13th, and has forcibly been medicated.

International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU), an organisation of humanist, atheist, rationalist, secular, skeptic, freethought and Ethical Culture organisations, is also taking up the matter.

The organisation is reporting that when a doctor which his family took him to, found him to be fit and well, they took him to another doctor.

The second doctor claims he was suffering with personality disorder, and the family allegedly told the doctor that he made claims that he was a “governor” and tells “trivial lies”.

The IHEU states that a Lagos-based group has asked a lawyer to take up his case.

A spokesperson for IHEU Bob Churchill says, “It appears that a warped notion of family honour is the motivation to pressure Mubarak in this appalling manner, to conform to religious views that he simply doesn’t hold. This is an abhorrent violation of his freedom of thought and belief.

We are joining with humanists and human rights advocates in Nigeria and the activists who have worked to highlight this case, in calling for an immediate re-evaluation of Mubarak’s case by a doctor who is entirely independent of the family, and for his swift release.”