Countries Where Apostasy is Punished

Exactly. The real source of problems in the world.

I think at first many of them believe that forcing the people to follow their religious principles will keep them from being tempted to go against those principles. For instance, if they don't allow people to watch Hollywood movies then they think the people won't become dissatisfied with their own lives and be tempted to do the things they see in those movies - drink alcohol, take drugs, have sex outside of marriage, etc. And then that turns into just what Malbaby said, they realize how much power they have, and they come to care more about controlling the people and keeping their power than really helping their people. As Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

This is a bit ignorant. As if all the horrors of religion are just invented by the State as a means of control to be inflicted upon the liberal secular good-hearted people who live in that state. I know that's a popular meme but it's simply not so. Often it's all the state can do in places like Pakistan and Bangladesh to STOP the common man from forming violent vigilante mobs to torture and murder accused apostates and blasphemers themselves. In places like Mubarak's Egypt, the Shah's Iran, Hussein's Iraq etc, largely secular and progressive (relatively) despots were just barely able to keep a lid on the religious lunacy threatening to boil over in their own countries. Confused people looking in to Saudi Arabia believe that the royal family there are theocrats who impose their brand of fundamentalist Islam on the people when little could be further from the truth- the AlSauds just understand what I typed above and try to appear pious to placate the real nuts- the common people.

No, because the punishments listed here are specifically imprisonment and execution. The Catholic Church doesn't punish heretics like it's the Middle Ages anymore.

If you can face legal problems in the Vatican for apostasy, then it qualifies just as well as any other country. Doesn't matter if you are beheaded or not. That said, I don't know too much about their legal system, so if it doesn't make the list, then so be it. WT2008 had a legitimate comment.

Lots of Muslim majority countries are not on this list.

Absolutely. What a gross violation of human rights! The governments of all of these nations should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves.

nah

Pakistan does not outlaw apostasy per se, however, they have very draconian laws about "blasphemy" and you could be locked up a long time (if you weren't murdered by vigilantes) simply for hurting someone's feelings or "defiling" the name of Muhammad or the Quran. Since apostates probably don't believe in the prophethood of Muhammad or the veracity of the Quran (for why else would they be apostates?)- if they do anything so much as admit to their own beliefs they could conceivably be charged with blasphemy.

The religion of peace :)

"Apostasy can be defined as "changing one's mind" by renouncing previous religious beliefs. In which countries can this be punished by imprisonment or death?" North Korea is an atheist state. You're confusing a cult of personality with religion.

Currently, yes. Christian countries used to execute people for apostasy and blasphemy in the Dark Ages but I can't find any information about when the last criminal prosecution for this took place. I'm guessing sometime around the Renaissance.

@kalbahamut, you would be wrong. In Britain John William Gott was sent to prison in 1922 for blasphemy after comparing Jesus to a clown. This was the last time anyone went to prison in Britain for blasphemy. More recently in 1977 a private prosecution was brought against Gay News for publishing a poem deemed blasphemous. They were fined and the editor was sentenced to nine months in prison but never actually served the time. Blasphemy ceased to be an offence in Britain in 2008.

The US has some laws which constitute establishment of religion, even though this is forbidden by their constitution. They do not even come close to punishing people for apostasy.

Why is it so bad that Western nations promote their religion if it doesnt harm anybody? Why do you defend muslim nations but condemn christian?

Criticism is not the same thing as vilification, and being allies with the United States doesn't necessarily shield you from receiving criticism from them. The Obama administration, for example, simultaneously sought cooperation with Saudi Arabia to fight terrorism and ISIS, and publicly criticized their treatment of women and religious minorities. The two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. The Trump administration has taken a different tack, kowtowing to anything that the Saudis want and refusing to criticize them, even while they murder journalists working for American newspapers, and even when the administration has to break American laws and bypass Congress to support the Saudi's war crimes in Yemen, and then fire Inspectors General investigating them for this. A different tack, for sure, but one that we haven't really seen before. Reagan during Iran/Contra was only half as hypocritical and not nearly so bold or blatantly criminal.

Unironically the fact USA tried to oust Assad was catastrophic fo the middle east

In the Middle East.

As a Malaysian myself, Malaysia is far from being a democracy like those in the West. Islamic fundamentalism has become more common these past years. So, of course, apostasy is punished. It has always been a punishable crime here to leave Islam.

Bruh. Do you even know what Islam is? Have you ever read the Quran with understanding? Have you ever read the life of Muhammad (PBUH)? I think its kind of premature and, mind you, a bit foolish and lazy of you to pass a comment without first analyzing all the evidence. If I were to be like you, I would say, "Look, Hindu mobs are murdering Muslims in India. Hinduism is a violent religion." You cannot judge a religion by one face. It has infinite faces and you should search for the one that is the truest and purest form, i.e the original interpretations.

High reliance on fossile resources and high vulnerability of agricultural production, which leads to concentration of wealth in a few hands and a often impoverished underclass. This forms out authoritarian models of government, which either use religion as a form of regulation (by surpressing people of other religions) or get challenged by radical anti-status quo groups (like ISIS, Al-shabaab, etc.).

Revelation based thought-models are inherently vulnerable to this, because they contain the promise of unquestionable truth, which is conflated with ethical purity. How ever, those instrumentations are mostly activated in times of high cultural stress, like scarcity of ressources i.e.. Thats why many christian countries do not have laws like that.

I don't think it is a secret, that many people in rich, non-muslim nations would make the same laws, if they could. Look at Uganda, bathroom laws in the US or burqa bans throughout Europe.

i mean, first amendment bro

Yet also, not remotely strange at all

They have this concept called "reversion" where everyone is Muslim at birth but can be led astray by other religions, then come back to the "true, right path," so I guess they don't like the reverse reversion...

tru, I was surprised Pakistan was not on here but yeah

low bar to clear

Jordan is a comparatively liberal Muslim country too. It has freedom of religion inscribed in its constitution...but it also has a constitutional provision stating that Sharia law is supreme, so you can *be* any religion if you're born into a different faith, but you cannot *convert* from Islam. The wrinkle is that religion is deemed a "family matter," and family matters are the province of the Sharia courts. So you convert from Islam, your Muslim parents drag you before the Sharia court, and they (because of the constitutional provision) can do whatever they want to you. It's some real BS. The government also identifies your religion at birth, and if you're born into a faith (like Baha'i) that they don't recognize, they just label you a Muslim...which means you're an apostate if you grow up practicing the faith into which you were born. So it's all dumb and backwards and "liberal" by the standards of these countries, is indeed a low bar, as kal said.

So by that definition, Muhammad Ali, George Harrison, Madonna, and all the other tens of thousands who convert every year should be prosecuted? No. It is your religion, and you should be free to convert whenever you feel like provided it doesn't harm anyone else.

If you are 'on the verge of leaving Islam' then you have already left Islam, because hesitating whether or not to apostatize is an act of major kufr.

You'd be wrong. Something funny I encountered living in the Muslim world: I'd be arguing with someone about how I thought it was wrong that blasphemy and apostasy were punishable by death, that you couldn't open a church in Saudi Arabia, and that non-Muslims were forbidden from setting foot in Mecca.

They would respond defensively with some kind of whataboutism, often saying something like: "but, if a Muslim went to the Vatican, what would they do!? They would kill him!"

To which I'd have to respond with laughter: "uhhh... no. They absolutely would not. The Muslim would be permitted to have a look around and leave without being molested, just like everyone else who goes there."

They just assumed everyone else in the world had the same mindset, when nothing could be further from the truth. But so different are these worlds that this fact hasn't even occurred to some of them.

I think the former 2 might be more extreme, not to say Indonesia's out of the clear, just relatively so