A post by Shady Srour, an Egyptian comedian, in which he announced a desire to denounce Islam and turn to atheism has taken the Egyptian and Arab social media by storm.

The 24-year-old comedian, who has become known for short sarcastic videos on social media in 2012, announced in October 2018 considering committing suicide due to the excessive cyberbullying he’s received since he started earning fame.

The video went viral at that time and raised controversy among Srour’s fanbase who urged him to back out of his thoughts and never care about bullies.

Nothing was heard back from Srour then.

On Friday, Srour returned back to his followers and posted a post on Facebook in which he announced leaving his former religion, Islam and explained the reasons behind his decision.

In his post, Srour confirmed that he was having suicidal thoughts for the past few months for the amount of hate and bullying he faced. Additionally, he blamed religion for all he went through.

“I left Islam because of racism and cruelty in the hearts of people who are supposed to believe in God but in fact, [they are] a bunch of insincere hypocrites.”

Shady Srour’s announcement has received massive reactions with more than 100K likes and comments and 80K shares.

It drew split opinions.

Many have supported Srour and encouraged him to stop listening to negative voices and return back to producing his videos.

Translation: "We all love you and are waiting for you. We like all your videos and support you. You are a really funny person and present a nice content and we all like it. We missed you so much. We will wait for you."

Many public figures also jumped on the post and shared some advice from their long experience with cyberbullying.

One of them is Sherif Madkour, an Egyptian TV host who was on TV for so long and faced bullying comments and hate, yet he managed to ignore it and gain more popularity.

Meanwhile, some accused Srour of seeking attention while others wondered whether he is going through some personal issues and he is just blaming it on people who don’t like him.

Srour’s story has shed a light on the growing trend among young Arabs who are publicly turning toward atheism as a result of several social issues they are facing and blaming on religion. Moreover, the story is attracting attention in the Western media.