A 35-year-old atheist and President of Humanist Association of Nigeria, Mubarak Bala, has spent 200 days in detention without trial for allegedly blaspheming Prophet Muhammed.

Bala, who for his atheist views in 2014, was confined to a mental institution for several months; was again arrested on April 28, 2020, for comparing the Prophet with TB Joshua, who is the founder of Synagogue Church of All Nations, and describing Muslims as terrorists.

Following his statement, a lawyer, S.S. Umar, wrote a petition to the Kano State Police Command, demanding the arrest of Bala for his inciting comment.

Bala was arrested at Gbabasawa Police Station in Kaduna State and transferred to the state police command and according to sworn affidavits, the police in Kano denied Bala access to his lawyers for several months.

Despite protests from several human rights organisations, including Amnesty International, the police filed a First Information Report before a Magistrate’s Court in No Man’s Land, Kano, accusing Bala of breaching the Cyber Crime Act just so to obtain a remand order.

The report read in part, “That you, Mubarak Bala, ‘35 years old’ did sometimes in April 2020, via a Facebook post, characterised Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), his religion, Islam, and his Muslim followers as terrorists and posted same on your Facebook page named Mubarak Bala.”

The police thereafter obtained a remand order from the court to detain Bala, but no date was given for arraignment, and this allowed the command to hold him for months before transferring him to a correctional centre in Kano.

Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, had described Bala’s detention as the height of cruelty more so as he has been denied access to his wife and baby based on security reports that they could be attacked by fanatics in the deeply religious state.

Bala’s lawyer, Mr. James Ibor, while stating that he was denied access to his client for over four mmonths, revealed that a fundamental human rights suit had been filed before a court in Abuja.

Ibor said, “In the North, what they do when the authorities allege any misconduct is to file a First Incident Report before a magistrate for the magistrate to review and determine if there is a prima facie case. It is sort of pre-hearing.”

The petitioner, S.S Umar, disclosed that Mubarak was being detained in a hidden part of a Kano correctional centre so that he would not be attacked by other inmates.