1 2 THE FREEDOM OF THOUGHT REPORT 2015 3 Freedom of Thought 2015: A Global Report on Discrimination Against Humanists, Atheists, and the Non-religious; Their Human Rights and Legal Status, was created by the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). The International Humanist and Ethical Union is the worldwide democratic body for Humanist, atheist, rationalist, secular, ethical culture, and freethought organizations. Its mission is to represent and support the global Humanist movement, and to build a world in which human rights are respected and all can live a life of dignity. If you have updates, additions or corrections for the report please email [email protected] or visit the website at freethoughtreport.com. To receive updates and news from IHEU, or join as a supporter, visit iheu.org. The cover image features a detail from a map produced using the data from this report. 4 5 This map shows countries by to their “Freedom of Thought” status, as determined in the Freedom of Thought Report 2015. Ratings applied according to the most severe boundary condition met by a given country. For example if a person can go to prison under the penal code of a given country for a religiously-defined crime such as “blasphemy”, then this country would receive a “Serious Discrimination” rating (even if the country otherwise was relatively free and non-discriminatory). The full list of boundary conditions and country-by-country assessments are included in this Report. Iheu.org freethoughtreport.com 6 “My late husband, Avijit Roy, was a science author, a blogger, a writer on topics including the origins of the whole Universe, homosexuality, the evolution of love and everything including literary criticism in between. Above all he was a humanist. He always wanted to explore the biggest questions in life. His interests were wide, but it was his books on liberal views, faith and disbelief for which he began receiving death threats. I was also a fellow blogger and writer with a published book on Evolution of Life. At the International Book Fair in Dhaka in February 2015 we were attacked by a group of men with machetes. Avijit was killed and I sustained 4 head stabs and a sliced of thumb. A young blogger, Washiqur Raham Babu, was the next machete victim, in March. In one of his last posts he had decried the breadth of topics on which Islamists demanded silence, from women’s and minority rights to religion and free expression itself. Our good friend and a published author Ananta Bijoy Das, having spent the intervening months writing and protesting about the failures of justice on the part of the Bangladeshi authorities in the earlier cases, was himself cut down in May. In August, blogger Niladri Chatterjee was hacked to death in his own home, his partner forced to watch as the attackers invaded their apartment. And at the end of October, two publishers of Avijit’s books were hit on the same day; the publisher Faysal Arefin Dipon, who published the two of Avijit’s infamous books on Faith and Disbelief, was killed, the publisher Ahmed Rashid Tutul was shot and hacked and left in critical condition. Two other bloggers and writers were gravely injured. These things we know: That all these men were brave, both intellectually, and because they knew that for some extremists even asking the wrong questions would be enough to rationalise their murder; That dozens more writers who dare to write critically about fundamentalism and advocate for a humanist worldview, are receiving death threats, and given the range of those killed so far any of them could be next; That instead of convicting even one suspect in these killings, the police and the government have been threatening to arrest bloggers themselves if they “hurt religious sentiments” by professing their own secular views. These killings are one part of the problem of extremism in one part of the world, and our freedoms of thought and expression are under attack in many other ways and in many other places around the globe. If there are lessons the world must draw from Bangladesh in recent years, they are these: Allowing bigotry and extremism to fester unchallenged will have generational consequences; Demands for prison or death sentences or vigilantism against humanists as such must be met not with appeasement nor by arresting the very bloggers under threat, but with condemnation as the gross violations of freedom of thought and expression that such demands represent; And that once a country silences and intimidates its intellectuals and freethinkers , a vicious cycle of terror and extremism becomes inevitable, just as we saw in the earlier mass-killings of the Bengali intellectuals in the 1971 Liberation war, again at the hands of religious extremists, it creates an intellectual vacuum, from which it could take many, many years to revert.” — Rafida Bonya Ahmed 7 Contents Foreword ......................... 11 Congo, Republic of the .... 78 Nigeria............................ 145 General Introduction ....... 12 Equatorial Guinea ............ 80 Senegal .......................... 148 Editorial Introduction ...... 17 Gabon .............................. 82 Sierra Leone ................... 149 How to Use this Report ... 20 São Tomé and Príncipe .... 83 Togo ............................... 151 Credits ............................. 25 Africa – Northern ........... 84 Americas – Caribbean .. 153 Africa – Eastern.............. 26 Algeria .............................. 85 Antigua and Barbuda ..... 154 Burundi ............................ 27 Egypt ................................ 89 Bahamas ........................ 156 Comoros .......................... 29 Libya ................................ 97 Barbados ........................ 157 Djibouti ............................ 32 Morocco ........................ 100 Cuba ............................... 158 Eritrea .............................. 34 Sudan ............................. 107 Dominica ........................ 159 Ethiopia ........................... 37 Tunisia ........................... 109 Dominican Republic ....... 161 Kenya ............................... 40 Africa – Southern ......... 114 Grenada ......................... 163 Madagascar ..................... 43 Botswana ....................... 115 Haiti ............................... 164 Malawi ............................. 45 Lesotho .......................... 116 Jamaica .......................... 166 Mauritius ......................... 48 Namibia ......................... 117 Saint Kitts and Nevis....... 168 Mozambique ................... 49 South Africa ................... 119 Saint Lucia ...................... 169 Rwanda ............................ 50 Swaziland ....................... 121 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines ..................... 170 Seychelles ........................ 53 Africa – Western .......... 122 Trinidad and Tobago ...... 172 Somalia ............................ 54 Benin.............................. 123 Americas – Central ....... 173 South Sudan .................... 56 Burkina Faso .................. 125 Belize.............................. 174 Tanzania .......................... 58 Cape Verde .................... 126 Costa Rica....................... 176 Uganda ............................ 60 Côte d'Ivoire .................. 127 El Salvador ..................... 178 Zambia ............................. 63 Gambia .......................... 128 Guatemala ..................... 180 Zimbabwe ........................ 66 Ghana ............................ 130 Honduras ....................... 182 Africa - Middle ............... 68 Guinea ........................... 133 Mexico ........................... 184 Angola ............................. 69 Guinea-Bissau ................ 135 Nicaragua ....................... 187 Cameroon ........................ 71 Liberia ............................ 136 Panama .......................... 189 Central African Republic .. 74 Mali ................................ 138 Chad ................................ 76 Mauritania ..................... 140 Americas – Northern ... 190 Congo, Democratic Republic Niger .............................. 143 Canada ........................... 191 of ..................................... 77 United States of America196 8 Americas – Southern ... 202 Singapore ....................... 275 Belarus ........................... 389 Argentina ....................... 203 Thailand ......................... 277 Bulgaria .......................... 391 Bolivia ............................ 206 Timor-Leste (East Timor) 279 Czech Republic ............... 394 Brazil .............................. 208 Viet Nam ........................ 280 Hungary ......................... 397 Chile............................... 210 Asia - Southern ............. 283 Moldova ......................... 403 Colombia ....................... 213 Afghanistan .................... 284 Poland ............................ 405 Ecuador ......................... 215 Bangladesh .................... 289 Romania ......................... 412 Guyana .......................... 217 Bhutan ........................... 297 Russia ............................. 416 Paraguay ........................ 219 India ............................... 299 Slovakia .......................... 421 Peru ............................... 221 Iran ................................ 303 Ukraine .......................... 423 Suriname ....................... 223 Maldives ........................ 309 Europe – Northern ....... 425 Uruguay ......................... 225 Nepal ............................