If you think life couldn't be any more difficult in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, think again. On December 26, 2021, the Taliban government announced that women can no longer travel farther than 45 miles (72km) without the companionship of a male relative.
A Shiite Muslim from Tyre, Lebanon, posed as a Jewish man and married a Jewish woman from Brooklyn, New York. Eliyah Hawila, a 23-year old Lebanese whose real name is Ali Hassan Hawila, was born and raised as a Muslim, with no Jewish heritage.
On Monday, November 29, a mob of violent Muslim protesters burned a police station, including four police posts in Peshawar, northeast Pakistan. Police officers repelled the mob's attempt to take a mentally unstable man accused of desecrating the Quran.
On October 31, US District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, ruled that businesses that hold religious beliefs are exempt from LGBTQ discrimination liability. O’Connor held that Braidwood Management Inc. is exempted from the LGBTQ anti-bias protections under the first amendment and Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
On Tuesday, October 26, the Supreme Administrative Court of Greece banned kosher and halal slaughter methods. These forms of ritual slaughter are religious requirements for Jews and Muslims. Both ways require animals to be slaughtered without anesthesia.
On the afternoon of October 8, Friday, the archbishop of the Archdiocese of Toledo in Spain released an apology for the “improper use of a sacred place.” The statement released by the archdiocese on behalf of Archbishop Francisco Cerro Chaves responds to a music video shot in the 13th century Toledo Cathedral.
Germany's largest mosque, the Cologne Central Mosque, has been permitted by Cologne to broadcast the call to prayer every Friday afternoon. The permission to broadcast the Muslim call to prayer, or adhan as it’s called in Arabic, came as part of the agreement to ease restrictions between the Muslim community and the city of Cologne.
On October 11, Monday, the Pavlovsky District Court of the Krasnodar territory in southern Russia sentenced the disabled 59-year old Vladimir Skachidub to more than four years in prison. Skachidub's sentence came from 2020 criminal charges for preaching his religious faith.
Local officials in China’s Xinjiang province announced that a prominent Uyghur real estate businessman and philanthropist, Yaqub Haji, died in prison. Investigating the social media of Haji’s families and friends, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported that his body was handed over to his family on September 6, 2021. There is no available information as to when and how Haji died.
