Atheists in the News Talking About Freeing Abdul Aziz Mohamed El Baz

A secular blogger, Abdul Aziz Mohamed El Baz,  has been in a Kuwaiti jail for some time now, and as many of you know I contacted my senators and representative on the issue in the attempt to apply pressure to free him. A reporter for an area newspaper interviewed a few Massachusetts atheists on this story. Here are excerpts from Lunenberg man working to free blogger in Kuwait.

Secular activists in Massachusetts, many of them former Muslims, have launched a campaign to try to free an Egyptian atheist blogger who was arrested for blasphemy in Kuwait on Dec. 31.

Online friends of Abdul Aziz Mohamed El Baz say the 27-year-old blogger is facing up to five years in prison for his online activities, which include both a written blog and a video discussion panel. Both are in Arabic.

 Here are some quotes from the people working on getting him out of prison.

This is about freedom from reprisal, not secular people against religious people. - Zachary Bos, MA state director of American Atheists

Aziz is not the first person to get locked up on blasphemy charges in Kuwait... There's some risk when you criticize Islam in Arabic. - Aly Aly member of the Arab Atheist Broadcasting Network

You don't know what goes on in those jails. They can do anything to him in there.- Najat Kessler, secular activist

He is a peaceful individual who is only a proponent of the separation of church and state. What he said was not to get religion out of the public square, but to have government not support it. - Andrew Hall, Brockton Area Atheists
 

Yeah, that last quote is from me. The reporter was good enough to mention that I called my elected officials.


If you're reading this I hope you have called your representative and senators.

Why?

Because...

this is Purgatory.