Mubarak Bala

[3] On 5 April 2022, the Kano State High Court sentenced Bala to 24 years imprisonment after he pleaded guilty to an eighteen-count charge of blasphemy and public incitement.

Fears mounted for his safety due to the fact that the Nigerian police allegedly transferred him from the state of Kaduna to Kano, where Sharia law is practiced, and in the face of several credible death threats.

Also, the newly formed International Association of Atheists (IAA) joined forces to raise awareness and funds to help pay Bala's legal costs.

[18] Jamie Raskin has advocated for his release as part of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission's Defending Freedoms project, and a petition was filed at the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on his behalf.

[19] On 5 April 2022, Mubarak was sentenced to 24 years in prison at a (secular)[17] high court in the northern state of Kano, after pleading guilty to all 24 charges and asking for leniency.

[26] The Nobel Prize-winning Nigerian author Wole Soyinka has expressed concern that Bala's arrest was part of a "plague of religious extremism" that has afflicted Nigeria in recent decades.