Apostasy in Islam and "Compulsion in religion"

...being the last part of my first letter.
Apostasy
You said in your letter: the Qur’an confirms that “there is no compulsion in religion”.30 You will not find a verse that states otherwise in the Qur’an.
Although I don’t think this is the major argument here, and I’ll explain why later, I disagree that the Qur’an is as clear cut on this point as you make out.

In fact , I think this is another example of abrogation, for later God tells Mohammed in surah 9.5 –“Then, when the sacred months have passed, slay the idolaters wherever ye find them, and take them (captive), and besiege them, and prepare for them each ambush. But if they repent and establish worship and pay the poor-due, then leave their way free. Lo! Allah is Forgiving, Merciful”.
This sounds pretty much like compulsion to me, but perhaps you can clarify.
But to the main point. You say:
Apostasy was seen as being akin to treason, in respect of which the death penalty has been available in a number of countries, including England until 1998.38 However, since “there is no compulsion in religion”, non-Muslims who still find the Islamic position in this subject troubling need not adopt Islam. 
I’m not entirely sure I see your point here. Apart from subtly suggesting that the injunction to execute apostates was a political rather than a religious issue (for which there is little justification and I’ll happily argue that one on another occasion) I note that you don’t use the argument I’ve seen elsewhere that the Qur’an doesn’t specifically mention this punishment (It doesn’t. But as you seem to accept, the hadith and other sources are pretty clear.)
So your defence of the killing of apostates seems to be “if you don’t like it, you don’t have to follow Islam”: non-Muslims who still find the Islamic position in this subject troubling need not adopt Islam.
I find that disturbing on two scores. Firstly, you seem happy to accept the premise that to join your faith one needs to be comfortable with the idea that a change of mind would be, quite literally, fatal. Secondly, you seem blissfully unconcerned with those poor souls born into the faith who later change their mind. This is NOTHING like treason. This is a personal decision on how to live one’s life.  Freedom to follow a religion or not is a basic human right. If your religion denies that to its followers, it seems to me to be the worst sort of totalitarian regime and it falls there and then.  I cannot understand how you can defend this, if that is indeed what you are doing. Perhaps you will clarify...