Muslim teen Rahaf Mohammed is safe in Canada. What if she were Malaysian or Indonesian?

While Muslim-born atheists face prison and re-education in Malaysia, in Indonesia non-believers risk being charged with blasphemy

Despite growing calls for compassion, discrimination and violence towards apostates remain common

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Demonstrators in Jakarta chant Islamic religious songs and wave banners reading “Save the religious community from apostasy”. Photo: AFP

Published: 9:15am, 20 Jan 2019Updated: 10:29am, 21 Jan 2019

Religion is a tricky subject for Kuala Lumpur-based freelancer Muhammad Ali. Born to a conservative Muslim family, he became an atheist but cannot express his beliefs publicly in Malaysia. The multiracial country is largely Muslim and apostasy from Islam is a criminal offence in some states, while the law decrees that only a sharia court can decide if a person is Muslim – their own agency counts for nothing.

Several years ago, there was a proposal to introduce the death penalty for leaving the religion, although this was swiftly dispensed with when the Pakatan Harapan coalition formed government, dethroning the more conservative Barisan Nasional last May.

In nearby Indonesia, where most of its 260 million people are Muslim, non-believers who comment on Islam and atheists vocal about their views face the spectre of blasphemy laws.

[Apostates] cannot be seen to exist, are ‘hunted down’

How both Southeast Asian countries handle the matter of Muslims leaving their faith became a topic of interest after Saudi Arabian teenager Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun barricaded herself in a Bangkok hotel room two weeks ago and lobbied for asylum. She said she had renounced Islam and fled from her family; apostasy in the kingdom can be punishable by death. Canada has since taken her in.

In Malaysia, besides the threat of prison, apostates face re-education in rehabilitation camps or whipping by state religious authorities. For Muhammad and many other atheists, this means “always looking over my shoulder”.

In 2017, he and his friends were viciously doxxed after a photo of them at an atheist gathering was shared online, with a federal minister even going so far as to say apostates – or murtads – had to “be hunted down”.

“Possible disowning and even ostracisation is very real. I feel threatened and unaccepted, like I have to hide everything. Murtads cannot be seen to exist, are ‘hunted down’ and threatened with all manner of excommunication from society,” Muhammad said.