It’s a tiny little island nation in the Indian Ocean, and it sounds like an interesting place. Unfortunately, the people there make it a hellhole.

In the Muslim-majority nation of Maldives, a man stunned an audience during questions and answers period in a lecture given by an Islamic cleric, by stating that he had chosen freedom of conscience not to follow Islam. The man, Mohamed Nazim, was promptly attacked, taken into custody, and has been threatened with death and beheading, or other punishments for choosing his freedom of conscience. Maldives media are reporting that it is the first time in many hundreds of years that a Maldivian has publicly renounced Islam, since Sultan King Hassan IX converted to Christianity in 1552 and was deposed.

Religion is an evil mind-rot with varying degrees of infection, but I think the worst of them all has to be Islam. What a nasty little superstition it is.

Here’s a real twist, though: The Maldives is on the UN Human Rights Council. I like the idea of an international tribunal like the UN, but this is the kind of insanity that makes it a joke.

Nazim was taken into police custody for expressing his conscience, where he received “Islamic counseling” and threatened with execution. The fact that he has now reverted to Islam in the face of such dire oppression does not change the fact that he’s got to be the bravest atheist alive.

Here’s a video of the odious Zakir Naik addressing Mohamed Nazim’s question. Theologians are all the same: he tries to turn it into an argument that god must exist, because otherwise there is no reason to have morality. Naik is a moron.

He does back off from insisting that Nazim be put to death, saying that there’s a difference between leaving the faith and advocating against the faith; the latter warrants killing the apostate, but not necessarily the first.