Irreligion in Yemen is uncommon among Yemenis, as Islam is the predominant faith.[1] It is difficult to quantify the number of atheists in Yemen, as they are not officially counted in the census of the country. There is a great stigma attached to being an atheist in Yemen, so many Yemeni atheists communicate with each other via the internet.[1]
The punishment for leaving Islam in Yemen is the death penalty.[1][2][3][4]
Persecution by Muslims
In response to the 2013 Sana'a attack, a Yemeni woman from Bajil in Hudaydah declared converting from Islam to Christianity and immediately, the government put her under investigations, after a chance timeout, sent her to a psychiatric hospital.[5][6] By the end of 2013, a new page was founded on the Facebook and encouraging non-religious Yemenis to show up and not to get afraid of the wild community reaction.[7]
There has been also a broad misconception between secularism and atheism or even being non-religious, many activists were kidnapped due to that confusion, examples including the following events:
- On 4 September 2015, a secular activist named Anwar Al-Wazir was kidnapped in Taiz in front of his family for being secular.[8][9]
- On 26 April 2016, a 17-year old activist named Omar Bataweel was accused for atheism and killed in Aden. One of his famous quotes was "They accuse me of atheism! Oh you people, I see God in the flowers, and you see Him in the graveyards, that is the difference between me and you".[10][11]
- On 15 May, 2017 Amjad Abdulrahman, a friend of Omar, was also murdered in Aden for apostasy. His family was prevented from burying him in his area and from doing Muslim funeral prayer.[12][13][14]