While Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, held a virtual forum on Telegram, a messaging platform, and someone posed a question for him, the Al-Arabiya news outlet reports. Since Iranian women were mandated to wear hijabs after the 1979 Islamic revolution, Khamenei was asked if “characters in animated films” should likewise be required to wear the hijab.
Roy was an American citizen of Bangladeshi provenance and a critic of religious extremism. He was publicly assaulted by machete-wielding assassins who butchered him to death as he and his wife were leaving a Dhaka book fair in February 2015. His wife, Rafida Ahmed, suffered head injuries and lost a finger.
The frontman of Behemoth, an extreme metal band in Poland, was found guilty of “offending religious feelings" after he shared an image of himself in September 2019 standing on a photo of the Virgin Mary. The Warsaw court convicted Musician Adam “Nergal” Darski within only a few days of the charges being brought against him.
Same-sex relations are finally legal in Angola as of February 10th. The changes were passed in January 2019 when Angola’s Parliament approved the amendments.
Police recently arrested five people for making death threats against the French teenager who said Islam is a ‘shit’ religion in a viral video.
Mila, the teenage girl (her last name is kept private), previously defended her intense atheist beliefs on French television after she offended Islam. During one outburst, she said the Quran is ‘full of hate.’
Nothing says "my religion isn't shit" like threatening teenage girls for saying otherwise.
After many years of trying to obtain a “no religion, no caste” certificate, Sneha Parthibaraja was finally certified on February 5th.Sneha, a 35-year-old lawyer from Vellore, became India’s first citizen to have a ‘no caste, no religion’ certificate.
Two gay men fled to Russia after escaping alleged torture in Chechnya. On February 3rd, they were seized by Russian police and taken back to Chechen police.
Loujain al-Hathloul, the Saudi activist who gained international attention as she publicly opposed the ban on women drivers in the country, was placed in custody by the Saudi government in May 2018 due to her activism.
Four students, who attend Istanbul's Bogazici University in Turkey, were arrested due to artwork depicting LGBT rainbow symbols alongside an image of Islam’s most sacred site, the Kaaba.
Some news outlets report the indistinct description of “LGBT rainbow symbols” alongside the Kaaba. To be more precise, four different flags were portrayed in each corner, featuring the iconic rainbow flag, and three others individually representing the lesbian, transexual, and asexual community.
A group of Israeli anti-fascists recently hacked a KKK webiste, and exposed the identities of several of its members. The hackers gave an exclusive statement to The Jerusalem Post identifying themselves as Hayalim Almonim, Hebrew for Anonymous Soldiers. This group is a cumulative movement of anonymous anti-fascists, also known as Antifa. This multi-celled group of activists operates together with no leaders as they oppose neo-Nazis, fascism, white supremacy, and racism wherever they can reach.
