Nigeria 

On 5 April the president of the Nigerian Humanist Society, Mubarak Bala, was sentenced to 24 years in prison on charges of causing a public disturbance. 

Mr Bala was initially arrested in April 2020 after he was accused of insulting Islam in his Facebook posts. 

Nigeria is one of 71 countries across the world that has a blasphemy law. Most are vaguely worded, and violate the freedoms of expression and religion or belief to differing degrees. The situation is compounded by deep social hostility in shari’a states, where blasphemy accusations can result in excessive sentences, collective punishment of an accused person’s family or community, or extrajudicial killings. 

Iran 

Nine Christian men from the Church of Iran stood trial on 22 February and were subsequently acquitted of charges of ‘endangering state security’ and ‘promoting Zionism’ by a revolutionary court on 28 February. 

The men had originally spent nearly two years in prison, before being released between 30 December 2021 and 1 January 2022 pending a review of their sentences. 

Among them was Pastor Matthias Haghnejad, and while he too was acquitted of these charges, he was re-arrested on 15 January on other security-related charges which date back to 2014. He faces a six-year sentence if convicted. 

Eritrea 

Abune Antonios, the legitimate patriarch of the Eritrean Orthodox Church, passed away at the age of 94 in the early hours of 9 February. 

Patriarch Antonios had spent the last 15 years under house arrest, after being removed from office for resisting the Eritrean government’s repeated interference in church affairs. Throughout his detention he remained defiantly critical of the Eritrean regime, refusing to compromise even when it could have led to his reinstatement.