On January 19, a Tennessee couple sued the Department of Children's Services after an adoption agency refused to facilitate their adoption because they are Jewish. Elizabeth and Gabriel Rutan-Ram said they were denied state-mandated training and certification because of their religion.
A Mexican Muslim woman who was employed to help organize the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar was forced to leave the country after being sexually assaulted. Paola Schietekat worked in Qatar’s Supreme Committee for Delivery & Legacy when a colleague sexually assaulted her last June.
A survey conducted in 2021 showed that an overwhelming majority of UK LGBTQ Christians are not comfortable and do not feel safe in their churches. According to the study, only 31% of the 754 respondents felt safe to be themselves in their local church.
On Sunday, February 20, Twitter took down a highly inflammatory tweet by the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Gujarat Twitter handle. The handle tweeted a cartoon of what appears to be a group of Muslim men being hanged. Local news outlets were able to take screenshots of the tweet before the Twitter platform itself removed the post.
A recently opened Holocaust museum in Indonesia's North Sulawesi province is causing an outcry from conservative Muslims and Islamic scholar groups. The groups are demanding that the permanent exhibition and museum dedicated to the horrors of the Holocaust be closed.
Sudarnoto Abdul Hakim, head of foreign relations and international cooperation of the country's Indonesian Ulema Council, said they demanded that the exhibition stop and cancel the museum.
Women's rights advocates and activists in Pakistan are distraught over the impending acquittal of a Pakistani man who murdered his sister in July 2016. Muhammed Waseem strangled his sister, Qandeel Baloch, and was sentenced to life imprisonment after confessing to the murder.
Outrage and scores of protests are erupting in India's Karnataka state after a group of Hindus heckled a young Muslim girl. In a video posted on Twitter on February 8, a Muslim girl wearing a burqa was bullied by a mob of militant far-right Hindus. Muskan Khan, a college student, can be seen fighting back the protesters in the video.
A private Christian school in Sydney, Australia, has taken the spotlight after the school included same-sex marriage in a list of relationships prohibited by God. The school brazenly listed same-sex marriage along with abusive relationships and adultery.
A 23-year old transwoman from Iraq was killed by her brother on what authorities and advocacy groups are calling a case of honor killing. Doski Azad, a transwoman who came out to her family and left home over five years ago, worked as a makeup artist in Dohuk city center, in Iraq’s Kurdistan region.
On January 29, a gathering of Sadhus, a holy person in Hinduism, passed a resolution that calls for Prime Minister Modi’s Indian government and the government of Uttar Pradesh to declare India a Hindu Rashtra (Hindu State). The group also laid out other demands, including capital punishment for religious conversions and the release of Yati Narasinghanand Saraswati and Waseem Rizvi.
