Muslims living in the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan, North Africa, Indonesia, Malaysia or Turkey have no freedom to say what they think about the political system or the faith. Turkey imprisons more journalists than any other nation. Iran is the second-worst country for journalists and bloggers. In Pakistan people are tortured for blasphemy – often false charges trumped up to keep people in line.

Last Friday in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, Raif Badawi was dragged out of prison in shackles, brought in front of the mosque and flogged 50 times for “insulting Islam”. Imagine the scene: worshippers who had just finished praying to a merciful God then watched the merciless punishment. This will happen every week until he has been lashed a 1,000 times. He will also spend 10 long years in a Saudi prison. His body and mind will thus be shredded. Badawi, an activist, had started a website, the Liberal Saudi Network, and shared some of his perfectly reasonable views. For that he had to be punished so severely that no one would ever try to do the same again.

In Pakistan, Afghanistan, most central Asian states, Egypt, Syria, Algeria, Libya, even “liberated” Iraq, people know they must not say what they think about their rulers or their imams, not even to neighbours or friends. The only choice is to conform and live, keep your boiling thoughts locked in your own head. Imagine the psychological consequences.

When, in 2010, the Arab Spring unexpectedly arrived, Muslims rejoiced, and thought they could at last speak freely and get proper democracies. I was in the Middle East in the most optimistic months. Spring turned to winter and even harsher restrictions were imposed everywhere. Now thousands of Muslims try to flee every day, to get to places where they can earn a living, be safe, most of all be liberated from oppression. Those people on boats who turn up on Europe’s shores want what the brothers Chérif and Saïd Kouachi and Amedy Coulibaly had before they blasted it all away.

When people ask me why i’ve stopped writing regularly, my response is usually “what is there to write about?”. Their universal response is usually giving me this sympathetic smile and say something akin to “I can’t blame you. It’s becoming too dangerous”, and then they change the subject as if attempting to evade a topic of embarrassment to me. I allow them to do this, to have them assume that my silence is out of cowardice, because it’s the easiest and fastest way to end the conversation. The truth is I wish I had the wisdom to not write due to self-preservation, but this is not the case. I’ve stopped writing simply because writing about Egypt these days is like writing another round-up of this week’s most unfortunate events: It’s boring. It’s like tweeting from the Titanic. How many times can you possibly say “we are sinking. This is not going well. #saveus #thebandiskillingitthough” before it just becomes spam? Somehow talking that you are still alive but not in optimal condition when so many around you are dying just seems like bad form.