This Week's Dispatch: Explore the Latest

In this week's Unbelief Brief, we learn more about the perpetrator of the attack in Madgeburg, Germany, and hear some surprisingly positive updates from Iran and Nigeria.

Unbelief Brief

By now, you have probably heard about the Christmas market attack in Magdeburg, Germany, which claimed the lives of five people and injured hundreds of others. You will likely have also heard that the perpetrator, a doctor from Saudi Arabia who immigrated to Germany in 2006, was an ex-Muslim and a supporter of far-right political causes. EXMNA has condemned the attack and reiterated its opposition to the ideology the attacker subscribed to—to the extent that there is one. Germany’s Central Council of Ex-Muslims also issued a statement, recalling that the suspect had harassed their organization for years and “that he assumed that even organizations critical of Islamism were part of the Islamist conspiracy.” In recent years, the attacker made a number of increasingly violent threats on social media, vowing to bring “justice” to an Islamizing Germany. At the moment, however, all that remains is to wait for more information from authorities—as well as to tune out the noise of dishonest figures who wish to bury or deny the attacker’s sympathies with far-right organizations like the Alternative for Germany (AfD) political party.

Over in Iran, some small victories: the new “Hijab and Chastity Law,” which would have significantly intensified penalties and enforcement for women who refuse to abide by the code of modesty culture, has been “paused” in its implementation. Shortly after authorities announced this, they also said that the current bans on WhatsApp and Google Play would be lifted. These attempts to appease a populace at odds with the regime and its principles shows that the Iranian government is slowly but surely beginning to bend to internal and external pressure. 

Finally, in Nigeria, a Christian woman who was accused of blasphemy and spent five years in a legal ordeal has been acquitted of her charges and moved to an undisclosed safe location. Rhoda Jatau, a mother of five, was initially accused and charged after she spoke against the lynching of Deborah Yakubu, a woman who was also accused of blasphemy. The charges should never have been brought in the first place and EXMNA welcomes the news that Jatau has received a small measure of justice, if much too delayed.

Persecution Tracker Updates

Read more about the case of Rhoda Jatau, the Nigerian Christian recently acquitted of blasphemy, from its beginning on our Persecution Tracker here.

Until next week,

The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America

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