The situation for apostates from Islam varies markedly between Muslim-minority and Muslim-majority regions. In Muslim-minority countries, "any violence against those who abandon Islam is already illegal". But in some Muslim-majority countries, religious violence is "institutionalised", and in 2007 "hundreds and thousands of closet apostates" live in fear of violence and are compelled to live lives of "extreme duplicity and mental stress."
Afghanistan
Article 130 of the Afghan Constitution requires its courts to apply provisions of Hanafi Sunni fiqh for crimes of apostasy in Islam. Article 1 of the Afghan Penal Code requires hudud crimes be punished per Hanafi religious jurisprudence. Prevailing Hanafi jurisprudence, per consensus of its school of Islamic scholars, prescribes death penalty for the crime of apostasy. The apostate can avoid prosecution and/or punishment if he or she confesses of having made a mistake of apostasy and rejoins Islam."Afghanistan – Laws Criminalizing Apostasy". . Library of Congress (May 2014) In addition to death, the accused can be deprived of all property and possessions, and the individual's marriage is considered dissolved in accordance with Hanafi Sunni jurisprudence. Al-Qaeda has viewed the United States as a leading apostate nation.
In February 2006, the homes of Afghan converts to Christianity were raided by police.Paul Marshall and Nina Shea (2011), Silenced: How Apostasy and Blasphemy codes are choking freedom worldwide. Oxford University Press. The next month converts to Christianity were arrested and jailed. Abdul Rahman, who had "lived outside Afghanistan for 16 years and is believed to have converted to Christianity during a stay in Germany", was charged with apostasy and threatened with the death penalty. His case sparked international protest from many Western countries. Charges against Abdul Rahman were dismissed on technical grounds of being "mentally unfit" (an exemption from execution under sharia law) to stand trial by the Afghan court after intervention by the president Hamid Karzai. He was released and left the country after the Italian government offered him political asylum.
Another Afghan convert, Sayed Mussa, was threatened with life imprisonment for apostasy but spent several months in jail, and was released in February 2011, after "months of quiet diplomacy" between the US and Afghan governments. According to a senior Afghan prosecutor, he was released "only after finally agreeing to return to Islam". His whereabout following his release was not known, and his wife said she "had not heard from him".
Another convert, Shoaib Assadullah, was arrested in October 2010 "after allegedly giving a copy of a Bible to a friend". He was released in March 2011 and left Afghanistan.
In 2012, a secular university teacher from Ghazni Province named Javeed wrote an article criticising the Taliban in English. The Taliban tried to seize him, but he and his wife Marina, a well-known Afghan television host, decided to flee to the Netherlands. In 2014 the article was translated to Pashto by the son-in-law of powerful warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leading to an uproar on social media with many accusations of apostasy and death threats directed at Javeed, and a large public demonstration in Kabul calling for his execution.
In late 2015, 21-year-old student and ex-Muslim atheist, Morid Aziz, was secretly recorded by his erstwhile girlfriend, Shogofa, criticising Islam and begged her to "forsake the darkness and embrace science". Shogofa, who had been radicalised whilst studying Sharia, played the recording at a mosque Friday prayer, following which came under considerable pressure to retract his remarks from his family and went into hiding shortly before a group of enraged men armed with Kalashnikovs showed up at his house. Twenty-three days later, he fled across several countries and ended up in the Netherlands, where he obtained permanent residency on 30 May 2017.
Extra-constitutional In August 1998 the Taliban insurgents slaughtered 8000 mostly Shia Hazara non-combatants in Mazar-i-Sharif, Afghanistan. The slaughter was called an act of revenge but also an act of takfir towards the Shia Hazara, after Mullah Niazi, the Taliban commander of the attack and newly installed governor, demanded loyalty, but also declared: "Hazaras are not Muslim, they are Shi'a. They are kofr [infidels]. The Hazaras killed our force here, and now we have to kill Hazaras. ... You either accept to be Muslims or leave Afghanistan."
Algeria
Freedom of religion in Algeria is regulated by the Algerian Constitution, which declares Sunni Islam to be the state religion.
According to Pew Research Center in 2010, 97.9% of Algerians were Muslim, 1.8% were unaffiliated, with the remaining 0.3% comprising adherents of other religions."Pew Research Center's Religion & Public Life Project: Algeria". . Pew Research Center. 2010.
By law, children follow the religion of their fathers, even if they are born abroad and are citizens of their (non-Muslim-majority) country of birth. The study of Islam is a requirement in both public and private schools for every Algerian child, irrespective of his or her religion. Although the educational reform of 2006 eliminated "Islamic sciences" from the baccalaureate, Islamic studies are mandatory in public schools at the primary level and followed by Sharia studies at the secondary level. Concerns have been expressed that requests by non-Muslim religious students to opt out of these classes would result in discrimination.
Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men (Algerian Family Code I.II.31), and Muslim men may not marry women of non-monotheistic religious groups. Prior to the 2005 amendments, family law stated that if it is established that either spouse is an "apostate" from Islam, the marriage will be declared null and void (Family Code I.III.32). The term "apostate" was removed with the amendments, however those determined as such still cannot receive any inheritance (Family Code III.I.138).
People without religious affiliation tend to be particularly numerous in Kabylie (a Kabyle-speaking area) where they are generally tolerated and sometimes supported. Notably, Berber civil rights, human rights and secular activist and musician Lounès Matoub (assassinated in 1998) is widely seen as a hero among Kabyles, despite (or because of) his lack of religion. In most other areas of the country, the non-religious tend to be more discreet, and often pretend to be pious Muslims to avoid violence and lynching.
The "blasphemy" law is stringent and widely enforced. The non-religious are largely invisible in the public sphere, and although not specifically targeted through legislation, significant prejudice towards non-Muslim religions can be presumed to apply equally if not more so to non-believers. The crime of "blasphemy" carries a maximum of five years in prison and the laws are interpreted widely. For example, several arrests have been made under the blasphemy laws in the last few years for failure to fast during Ramadan, even though this is not a requirement under Algerian law. Non-fasting persons () repeatedly face harassment by the police and civil society. Those who "renounce" Islam may be imprisoned, fined, or coerced to re-convert.
Bangladesh
Apostacy is not illegal in Bangladesh. Constitutionally, Bangladesh is a secular state (Article 12), with Islam as the state religion (Article 2A). The constitution guarantees freedom of religion and prohibits discrimination based on religious affiliation (Article 28). The civil code in Bangladesh is largely secular, which based upon the English common law. Theoretically, one can legally change his/her religion. In reality, however, instances of persecution of ex-Muslim apostates is often reported. British-era blasphemy laws are often used to harass, detain or convict apostates who publicly criticise Islam. Due to these, ex-Muslims have to remain quiet or hide their identity to avoid harassment.
Bangladeshi society is largely conservative. Leaving religion is considered a social crime. Apostates are heavily pressured and persecuted by the their family and society. They are often subjected to mental and physical torture for their beliefs, including attacks and lynching by radical groups. Extrajudicial village courts (illegal under Bangladeshi law) often issue fatwas to excommunicate the apostates. Due these, ex-Muslims have to leave their family and society, and even the country in life-threatening cases.
The first ex-Muslim to flee the country in the history of independent Bangladesh was Daud Haider, a poet who left the country under the pressure from the government in 1974 for publishing a poem insulting Islam. Feminist author Taslima Nasrin (who opposes sharia) suffered a number of physical and other attacks for her critical scrutiny of Islam, before being driven into exile. In August 1994 she was brought up on "charges of making inflammatory statements", and faced criticism from Islamic fundamentalists. A few hundred thousand demonstrators called her "an apostate appointed by imperial forces to vilify Islam"; a member of a "militant faction threatened to set loose thousands of poisonous snakes in the capital unless she was executed."
Between 2013 and 2016, more than fifty secularists & atheists (including ex-Muslims) were systematically targeted and killed by the extremist groups. The radical Islamist group Hefazat-e-Islam Bangladesh, founded in 2010, created a hit list which included 83 outspoken atheist or secularist activists, including ex-Muslim bloggers and academics. Dozens of atheist and secularist Bangladeshis on this list have been targeted for practicing "free speech" and disrespecting Islam, such as Humayun Azad, who was the target of a failed machete assassination attempt, and Avijit Roy, who was killed with meat cleavers; his wife Bonya Ahmed survived the attack. Since 2013, 8 of the 83 people on the hit list have been killed; 31 others have fled the country. Majority of the people criticized the killings and the government took strict measures and banned extremist groups like Ansar al-Islam. On 14 June 2016 approximately 100,000 Bangladeshi Muslim clerics released a fatwa, ruling that the murder of "non-Muslims, minorities and secular activists ... [is] forbidden in Islam".
Most of the Bangladeshi people who leave Islam become atheists or agnostics. Amongst those who convert to other religions, Hinduism dominates the list, as it's perceived as the original ancestral religion of Bengali people before the arrival of Islam and compatible to the Bengali culture. Conversion from Islam for marital purposes isn't uncommon in Bangladesh.
Belgium
In the Western European country of Belgium, Muslims made up about 5–7% of the total population as of 2015. Although legally anyone is free to change their religion, there is a social taboo on apostatising from Islam. Moroccan-Belgian stand-up comedian Sam Touzani is a rare example of an outspoken ex-Muslim; he was condemned by several fatwas and has received hundreds of death threats online, but persists in his criticism of Islam and Islamism.