A Nigerian man, Mubarak Bala, has been incarcerated in a mental health institution by his family for saying he had lost his belief in God.
Mubarak Bala, 29, is said to have been forcibly medicated for "insanity" for nearly two weeks, despite a doctor's opinion that he has no psychological problems.
Campaigners are calling for his release and say the case highlights the fact that atheists are a persecuted minority in many African countries.
Bala's Twitter account uses the handle "ExMuslim", and his profile says: "Chemical Process Engineer. I stand for Truth&Justice. Religion insults human conscience &reason, duped me that I have another lifetime. Agnostic Atheist."
He lives in Kano in Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north. The state adopted sharia law in 2000 and has a strict Islamic police force called the Hisbah.
When Bala told his family that he had renounced Islam, they took him to a doctor and asked if he was mentally ill, according to the International Humanist and Ethical Union, which has taken up the case. The doctor gave him a clean bill of health, but the family turned to a second doctor, who said his atheism was a side-effect of a personality change.
The family allegedly told the doctor that he had also made delusional claims that he was a "governor" and other "trivial lies". Bala was subsequently admitted to the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital on 13 June and has since been held there against his will.
He has pleaded to the outside world for help in emails and tweets from several phones smuggled into the institution. In one email, he said: "And the biggest evidence of my mental illness was large blasphemies and denial of 'history' of Adam, and apostasy, to which the doctor said was a personality change, that everyone needs a God, that even in Japan they have a God.
"And my brother added that all the atheists I see have had mental illness at some point in their life."
In a tweet sent on 21 June, he wrote: "My neck still hurts, from the strangle-hold of my father, and the beat of uncles dislocated my finger and arm, I then got sedated by me bro."
Another tweet, thought to refer to Bala's father, stated: "Being a leader, in the forefront of Islami movement in Nigeria, he can't afford to have a nonmuslim family member, so he declared me insane."
But Bala's father tells a different story, according to lawyer Muhammad Bello Shehu. "From what I gather from the family, Mubarak started expressing these beliefs six or seven months ago. The father was aware that he had stopping praying and going to mosques for a year now.
"But when he started tweeting about it and going public, that might have endangered his life and his family. So according to the father, the major reason he took him to the hospital was for his own safety. The way people take religion here means he could have been lynched for making such announcements."
There is a need for clarity about Bala's mental state, Shehu added. "The doctors are of the opinion that he does have a psychological problem. He says not. The issue now is for us to get an independent psychiatric analyst to assess his status."
It is understood that Bala's latest phone has since been confiscated but he has been moved back into the public ward from a private room.
His detention was condemned by the Nigerian Humanist Movement. Bamidele Adeneye, a member, and the secretary of the Lagos Humanists, said: "I met Mubarak online a while ago and he seemed very lucid, intelligent and witty as well as bold and courageous. What amazed me was that he's a Muslim atheist, which is very rare in Nigeria."
Adeneye recalled that suddenly Mubarak told him his brother was trying to put him into a mental institution because he did not believe in God. "Then he said his family had sent him for treatment for insanity. I saw online that his father had written how TV encourages atheism, so be careful."
Bala had been due to go to South Bank University in London in the UK, Adeneye added.
"If you speak to Mubarak you'll know there is nothing wrong with him," he said. "Basically he told them he didn't believe in the Adam and Eve story or in Allah. The constitution clearly states that you have a right to be religious or non-religious. It is a violation of human rights.
"There are Islamic police in Kano. I fear for his life. Somebody might go to the hospital to attack him. We are trying to get him out. I'm scared because if it can happen to him it can happen to me."
The Lagos Humanists have no more than 10 active members in a [I've emailed David Smith to ask whether that's for the NHM or the Lagos organisation (he seems to have conflated the two). If the latter, would it be more appropriate to give the figure for the population of Lagos? It's estimated to be 21 million]city of 21 million people. Adeneye said: "Atheists are a minority that are frowned upon. I grew up in a Christian house, going to church. I would ask my father, 'Why are we going?' He encouraged me to keep asking questions.
"Many Nigerians think atheists are horrible. I've had lots of death threats and messages like 'You don't deserve to be alive.' But atheism is growing in countries such as Kenya, Uganda and Ghana. Thanks to programmes such as Cosmos, children are understanding evolution and questioning their parents, asking, 'Could we really all have come from two people?'"
The IHEU has expressed concern over Bala's "deteriorating condition" after reports that he is weak and his hands are shaking. Spokesman Bob Churchill said: "It appears that a warped notion of family honour is the motivation for pressuring Mubarak in this appalling manner, to conform to religious views that he simply doesn't hold. This is an abhorrent violation of his freedom of thought and belief.
"We are joining humanists and human rights advocates in Nigeria and the activists who have worked to highlight this case, in calling for an immediate re-evaluation of Mubarak's case by a doctor who is entirely independent of the family, and for his swift release."
Christianity and Islam continue to dominate Africa, with non-belief virtually taboo in large swaths of the continent. But, like gay rights activists, atheists are gradually finding their voice, and Churchill believes the tide is turning.
"I think very often in sub-Saharan Africa the social pressures mean that the idea of atheism is unlikely to be discussed. But we're slowly seeing a shift and you can't put the genie back in the bottle. The thoughts are there and some proportion of the population is prepared to say yes, I believe in them. There is starting to be a very serious pushback."
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