Two LGBTQ rights activists were sentenced to death in Iran for allegedly promoting homosexuality. Activists Zahra Sedighi-Hamadani and Elham Chobdar were charged with “Corruption on Earth,” a vague yet lethal charge.
The Urmia Revolutionary Court handed the ruling in Urmia City, western Iran, close to its borders with Turkey.
On August 31, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights released its “Assessment of Human Rights Concerns in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, People’s Republic of China.”
In 2017, the UN started receiving allegations of abuse from non-governmental organizations, think tanks, and media outlets, prompting the investigation. Since then, numerous research reports have been published alleging arbitrary detention, torture, sexual violence and forced sterilizations, forced labor, and other ill-treatment of up to a million people.
Continuing the crackdown on women, Iran’s Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has released a 119-page document outlining new rules women must now observe.
IranWire called the new order, titled Hijab and Chastity Project, unhinged, calling out its most important goal: "cleansing society of the pollution caused by nonconformance with Islamic dress codes."
Two Saudi national women were found dead in their apartment in Canterbury, New South Wales, Australia, on June 7, 2022. According to local authorities, the two victims had been dead for a month.
Farangis Mazlum, Soheil Arabi’s mother, was brought to the Judgement Enforcement Unit of the Evin Prison in Iran on August 2, 2022. The 55-year-old Mazlum will serve an 18-month custodial sentence for speaking out against her son’s arrest.
In New South Wales, Australia, forty-eight-year-old defendant Hamdi Al-Qudsi appeared before the Supreme Court for his trial on July 18th. Al-Qudsi pleaded “not guilty” to charges that he intentionally directed a terrorist organization as he prepared toexecute attacks.
The decision of the United Kingdom's Department of Education to prohibit a Salafi activist from spreading his hateful teachings was welcomed by the National Secular Society (NSS). This ruling notes that several harmful sermons were published. This decision prevents the former faith school proprietor from managing private or state school teachings.
In the nearly 300-page report of an independent investigation, the first correlative study of the immense Protestant sect of Southern Baptists, several top clergy members were found to have minimized, ignored, and even vilified sex abuse survivors who came forward for help.