Despite the fact that I keep correcting journalists when they call Egyptian atheist activist, Alber Saber a “Coptic Christian,” most journalists don’t know who he is or what has happened to him. His story remains a fringe story banished to the rarely read religion sections of most media outlets.
When Saber was arrested for blasphemy, I wrote an Examiner article on it. After Rebecca Watson created a petition to get him free, I added that to the article. That petition seems to have failed. It only generated a little more than half what it was asking for. Even so, online petitions aren’t usually that helpful in situations like this. The State Department if they get it at all, they only get one paper with X number of names. What they really need to get is X number of papers.
Enter the American Humanist Association. They just put out a call for action to e-mail a letter to the State Department. This is better than a petition, but still not the best. A phone call would be better and even better than that, would be if you were to write a physical letter and mail it to the State Department.
So here is what I am asking you to do. If you are super lazy and don’t want to put any time into this just click here and sign Watson’s petition. That’s super easy. It takes two seconds. If you have a full minute or two, then go to AHA’s call for action and follow the instructions. That’s also super easy. It takes two minutes tops. If you aren’t phonphobic, then take a few minutes to give the State Department a phone call at 202-647-4000. Tell them that you want them to put pressure on the Egyptian government to get Saber released.
Now, if you really want to help, do all three of those and then spread the word and write the State Department an actual snail-mail letter. You can even use AHA’s template. Just copy it into a word file, make any changes you want to make, print it out, and send it out. Here is their address:
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
This may not get the support of the State Department and even if it does, they may not even be able to help. But at the very least, we can say that we tried and we fought to get an atheist activist free. We can get the word out that atheists are being arrested merely because we refuse to believe ridiculous ancient stories based on insufficient evidence. The bigger an effort we make the better. We need to send a message that it is not okay to arrest atheists or any one else for blasphemy. Please show your support for Alber Saber.
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