Iran’s Foreign Ministry has recalled the ambassador to the United Kingdom over a controversial video of a ceremony hosted by the embassy. Mohsen Baharvand, Tehran’s ambassador to London, hosted the 43rd anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, allowing unveiled women in attendance.
New Zealand's parliament passed a bill that will ban conversion therapy on Tuesday, February 15. Introduced in August 2021, the Conversion Practices Prohibition Legislation Bill passed its third reading with a massive offset of 112 to 8.
When enacted, the bill will "prohibit conversion practices that seek to change or suppress a person's sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression."
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.
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.
Rob Standridge, a Republican Senator from Oklahoma, has introduced a stupefyingly callous, religiously inspired bill to the Oklahoma senate. Known as the Students' Religious Belief Protection Act, the bill seeks to penalize educators who oppose students' "closely held religious beliefs."
On February 1, 2022, the Egyptian parliament discussed increasing the penalty for wife-beating proposed by a female lawmaker, Amal Salama. Salama stated that she did not believe the current penal code provided “appropriate penalties” for domestic violence.
As it stands, women are unprotected as no law specifically criminalizes domestic abuse against women. Salama’s proposal details imprisonment of up to five years for men who beat their wives.
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.
On January 25th, 2022, a video of Samajwadi Party (SP) candidate for the Uttar Pradesh Assembly Election, Adil Chaudhary, went viral on Twitter where he stated “we,” as in Muslims, “will take revenge” for crimes being committed against us.
In a video posted on Twitter on January 16, Barry Rosen, a former U.S. Diplomat among the 52 Americans held hostage during the U.S. Embassy attack in Tehran in 1979, announced his plans to go on a hunger strike. The hunger strike coincides with the 41 year anniversary of Rosen’s release after 444 days in Iranian custody.
