Abuses Involving Discrimination or Unequal Treatment

The government continued to maintain control over cinema, music, theater, and art exhibits and censored those productions deemed to transgress Islamic values. The government censored or banned films deemed to promote secularism and those containing what it deemed as non-Islamic ideas concerning women’s rights, unethical behavior, drug abuse, violence, or alcoholism. According to the IHRDC, the nine-member film review council of the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, consisting of clerics, former directors, former parliamentarians, and academics, must approve the content of every film before production and again before screening. According to a report by the Tehran Electronic Trade Association, one-third of the 200 most popular websites in the world remained inaccessible in Iran due to authorities filtering or blocking them. Many websites of popular international news outlets, the political opposition, ethnic and religious minority groups, and human rights organizations were inaccessible inside Iran. Authorities also blocked private citizens from widely used online messaging tools, including Facebook, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), Telegram, TikTok, and WhatsApp, although the government reportedly operated official and bot accounts on these platforms that disparaged minority religions and their adherents.

BIC reported in May that in several localities, including Tehran, the government blocked Baha’is from carrying out burials of deceased relatives in accordance with Baha’i rites. Between March and May, authorities seized at least six bodies and buried the deceased without the knowledge of their families and without Baha’i rites. According to BIC, government officials, including Ministry of Intelligence official Masoud Momeni, obstructed families from obtaining burial permits and taking custody of their deceased relatives. According to BIC, Momeni demanded exorbitant fees to use burial plots in the Khavaran Cemetery, which was traditionally the place for burial of Baha’is, and secretly buried deceased Baha’is in an adjacent plot, which was the site of a historical mass grave for political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. Simin Fahandej, BIC’s representative to the United Nations in Geneva, called the forced burials “coldhearted and grotesque.” According to BIC, the Ministry of Intelligence arrested three individuals – Mansour Amini, Valiollah Ghedamian, and Ataollah Zafar – who for years had assisted fellow Baha’is at Khavaran Cemetery, as well as Shadi Shahidzadeh, who approached officials asking that they release her grandmother’s body to her so that she could be buried in accordance with Baha’i rights. On May 31, a court sentenced all four individuals to five years in prison for membership in a group that engages in “illegal acts with the aim of disrupting the security of the country.” According to the report The Baha’i Question, in June, authorities advised the Baha’i community of Arak in Markazi Province that the government intended to auction off land used by the Baha’is as a cemetery for more than 120 years, containing approximately 250 graves. The government confiscated the cemetery in 1980, but it had remained in use under the care of the community. BIC reported that on June 9, the Baha’is in Gorgan, Golestan Province, learned that a number of graves in the Baha’i cemetery had been destroyed and that someone claimed to have purchased the cemetery land and held its deeds. The public prosecutor informed the Baha’i community the land had been confiscated in 1980 and subsequently sold without their consent. In August, authorities in Karaj, Alborz Province, constructed a fence around the Baha’i cemetery at Zarnan and did not provide the Baha’i community with keys so they could access it. Baha’is continued to be prosecuted for gathering and peacefully practicing their religion. In June, a court sentenced a member of the Baha’i community, Hami Bahadori, to five years in prison for gathering and collusion, and an additional one year for spreading propaganda against the Islamic Republic. Per the verdict, authorities also seized property belonging to him and his wife, including a computer, camera, hard drive, modem, and jewelry. The Jewish community in Tehran warned people on the messaging app Telegram to refrain from stopping and gathering in the streets for any reason during Rosh Hashanah and after performing religious duties in synagogues during the High Holy Days in September. The community also reportedly warned Jews to maintain a low public profile on al-Quds Day in April, which the government established shortly after the revolution to express opposition to Israel and Zionism. According to the joint report Rights Violations Against Christians in Iran, authorities permitted only four Farsi-speaking churches to operate inside the country but had not allowed these to reopen since the COVID-19 pandemic. The report stated these house churches were not permitted to take on new members, and their dwindling congregations included no more than 70 worshippers in total. Article 18 reported that as of January, there were at least 18 Christians serving sentences of prison or internal exile due to their participation in house churches. The report stated the IRGC, rather than the Ministry of Intelligence, was increasingly taking the lead on raids on house churches and the arrest and interrogation of their members and that there were more frequent reports of Christians suffering physical abuse during arrest and interrogation as a result. Open Doors USA said the historical communities of Armenian and Assyrian Christians, although recognized and protected by the state, were “treated as second-class citizens.” They suffered from legalized discrimination, including being prohibited from worshiping in Farsi or possessing Christian material written in Farsi. In addition, historical Christian communities were not allowed to have contact with Christians from Muslim backgrounds or have them attend church services. The government continued to restrict the foreign travel of some religious leaders and members of religious minorities. According to the NGO Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC), the government imposed in-country travel restrictions on Sunni clerics and prohibited them from going abroad. Authorities reportedly blocked the planned pilgrimages to Mecca of outspoken critics, including Sunni clerics Molavi Abdolhamid and Molavi Mohammad Tayyeb Mollazahi, both Friday prayer leaders in Sistan and Baluchistan Province. According to the Wilson Center, the government also banned Abdolhamid from all travel, both international and domestic. On May 5, Article 18 reported U.S. researchers found that police used spyware to monitor the smartphones of members of minority groups, including Christians. The researchers believed malware was uploaded to individuals’ phones after they had been arrested or detained.

The government continued to require all women to adhere to “Islamic dress” standards in public, including covering their hair and fully covering their bodies in loose clothing – an overcoat and a hijab or, alternatively, a chador (a full body-length piece of fabric worn over both the head and clothes). “Un-Islamic dress” was punished with arrests, imprisonment, lashings, fines, mandatory psychiatric treatment, closure of businesses which did not enforce dress codes, and dismissal from employment. In an address to regime figures on April 4, Ayatollah Khamenei described the hijab as a requirement of both Islam and the law. Ignoring it, he added, was “forbidden both under Islam and politically.” According to press reports, judges also sentenced women convicted of not wearing the hijab to public service, including work in morgues or street cleaning, in lieu of prison time. Protests against the mandatory hijab under the slogan “Zan, Zendegi, Azadi” (“Woman, Life, Freedom”) continued into the year, originally prompted by Mahsa Amini’s death in custody in 2022. In April, VOA reported authorities closed 45 businesses after the businesses ignored warnings they were not enforcing the compulsory hijab rule among their customers. According to VOA, on April 15, the government launched a new domestic surveillance program for enforcing the mandatory hijab law, and the national police chief, Ahmad Reza Radan, said authorities would employ advanced surveillance capabilities, including street cameras, to identify women violating the law. VOA stated that despite the threat of punishment, videos posted on social media appeared to show many women in different parts of the country defying the rule. In July, Amnesty International reported that more than a million women had received SMS text warnings threatening to confiscate their cars if they were found traveling in a vehicle unveiled. The Amnesty report also stated that unveiled women had been denied access to banking, education, and public transit. The Amnesty posting also reported that on July 16, a police spokesman announced the return of police patrols to enforce compulsory veiling. Analysis published by the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) stated that as of September, regular citizens were being compelled to assist law enforcement efforts regarding the wearing of the hijab. USIP reported citizens were required to deny services to women who did not adhere to hijab regulations, blocking access to banks, shops, and restaurants, and that business owners who failed to comply risked fines or even closure of their establishments. On July 10, the Guardian newspaper reported that at least 60 women had been barred from university for noncompliance with the hijab law. In his August report, UN Special Rapporteur Rehman reported that “vigilante justice” by elements of the government resulted in violence against women, including arrests and arbitrary detentions, and that “hundreds of businesses” were closed or had received warnings for allowing customers or employees to wear an “improper” hijab. CHRI reported that on August 7, the Tehran municipal government hired 400 hijab guards to enforce hijab compliance in public areas. According to CHRI, the guards were separate from the morality police, who enforced codes of conduct for both men and women. On September 20, parliament approved the “Bill to Support the Family by Promoting the Culture of Chastity and Hijab,” that would set new and harsher penalties for noncompliance with the Islamic dress code as interpreted by authorities; the Council of Guardians had not approved the bill by year’s end. Amnesty International reported the bill equated unveiling to nudity. According to a statement from Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the proposed changes increased the potential prison time for violating the compulsory dress code from two months to 10 years and increased the fine from 500,000 rials ($12) to up to 360 million rials ($8,600). Shamdasani said women also faced flogging, travel restrictions, and deprivation of online access. According to USIP and the Associated Press, the bill also called for more strict segregation of the sexes in schools, parks, hospitals, and other locations. The bill reportedly extended punishments to business owners who served women not wearing hijab and activists who organized against it. Celebrities not wearing the hijab properly could be banned from leaving the country and performing. On September 1, a panel of UN experts that included UN Special Rapporteur Rehman stated the legislation “could be described as a form of gender apartheid.” The panel expressed concern that the language of the draft law could lead to violent enforcement, adding that the bill “violates fundamental rights, including the right to take part in cultural life, the prohibition of gender discrimination, freedom of opinion and expression, the right to peaceful protest, and the right to access social, educational, and health services and freedom of movement.” On October 6, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize to Narges Mohammadi, the imprisoned deputy head of the NGO Defenders of Human Rights Center, “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.” Nobel Committee chair Berit Reiss-Andersen said, “Her brave struggle has come with tremendous personal costs. Altogether, the regime has arrested her 13 times, convicted her five times, and sentenced her to a total of 31 years in prison and 154 lashes.” In addition to speaking out against the death penalty, torture, and solitary confinement, Mohammadi opposed the compulsory hijab. She remained in Evin Prison at year’s end, serving a 12-year sentence on multiple charges related to her advocacy, including “spreading propaganda against the regime.” Radio Farda reported authorities twice denied Mohammadi medical care and exams after her refusal to wear a hijab. In a letter to the Nobel Committee, Mohammadi wrote, “The ‘compulsory hijab’ is a means of control and repression imposed on the society and on which the continuation and survival of this authoritarian religious regime depends.” In a letter to CNN smuggled out of the prison, Mohammadi said that the government was using the hijab as a pretext “all to preserve the image of religious Islamic men and ensure the security and purity of women,” adding, “The ‘compulsory hijab’ was a deceitful scheme against women and a tool of pressure to strengthen the power of the religious government.” Following the Nobel committee’s announcement, numerous foreign governments and human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, called on the government to release Mohammadi. On February 9, international media reported the government released seven women from Evin Prison, including Saba Kord Afshari, who had been imprisoned since 2019 after she campaigned against the mandatory hijab. In 2022, authorities reduced her sentence from seven and a half years to five years. The government reportedly continued to suppress other public behavior it deemed counter to Islamic law, such as women dancing or singing in public. According to a UN experts panel statement issued in March, several young women who filmed themselves dancing on the street without covering their hair were chased down and forced to apologize on state television. In January, according to KHRN, the Revolutionary Court in Shahriar in Tehran Province sentenced a Kurdish woman, Mahsa Farhadi, to two years’ imprisonment for not wearing a hijab. Security officials arrested Farhadi in late 2022. On March 7, international media reported a court had sentenced an unnamed woman to two years in prison for removing her hijab. One report quoted prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi as saying the woman was attempting to “encourage corruption through the removal of the hijab in public.” Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe reported that earlier in the year, authorities announced they had detained 29 women who removed their head scarves as part of a campaign against the country’s mandatory Islamic dress code. On August 17, KHRN reported authorities arrested Firmesk Babaei after she removed her hijab and shouted antigoverment slogans near the governor’s office in the city of Paveh in Kermanshah Province. According to the report, officials beat Babaei during her arrest and took her to an unknown location.

Abuses Involving the Ability of Individuals to Engage in Religious Activities Alone or In Community with Others

Abuses Limiting Religious Belief or Expression

a Supreme Court decision to overturn the original guilty verdict and death sentence due to a “flaw in the investigation,” authorities continued to incarcerate Kurdish singer and songwriter Saman Yasin (Seydi), a Yarsani who was arrested and charged in late 2022 with “enmity against God” for supporting the nationwide protests against the killing of Mahsa Amini. Media and NGOs reported Branch 15 of the Iranian Revolutionary Court denied Yasin a lawyer and that Yasin attempted suicide following the verdict. The Supreme Court returned the case to the Revolutionary Court. Subsequently, Yasin went on several hunger strikes protesting his treatment and was forcibly committed to a psychiatric hospital for three days. Another prisoner, Ahmadreza Haeri, reported in a November letter that Evin Prison authorities had subjected Yasin to a mock execution before his original trial concluded. Radio Farda reported that no new trial had yet been scheduled and Yasin did not have access to his lawyer. According to international media, a court sentenced another singer, Toomaj Salehi, to six years and three months’ imprisonment. Authorities arrested Salehi in 2022 for supporting the Amini protests and charged him with “spreading corruption on earth.” A group of UN human rights experts had expressed concern regarding the cases of both Yasin and Salehi after their arrests. Media outlets reported that in August, authorities arrested pop singer Mehdi Yarrahi following the release of his song, “Your Head Scarf,” (“Roosarito”) which urged women to remove their hijabs. According to Voice of America (VOA), government-linked media outlets accused Yarrahi of “releasing an illicit and morally inappropriate song that contradicts the Islamic societal norms.” His trial was pending at year’s end. According to human rights NGOs, judges continued to use internal exile as a form of punishment for political prisoners, including peaceful activists, religious minorities, and dissidents. According to CHRI, the concept of exile or banishment is rooted in Shia theology and is referred to as “denial of country” (nafiye balad). Exile could be ordered as the primary punishment, for example for those found guilty of “enmity against God” or “armed rebellion,” or as a supplemental punishment for various crimes, to be carried out after the completion of a prison sentence. Judges chose exile locations from a list prepared by the Ministry of Interior; these were usually remote towns in regions with extreme poverty. Iran Human Rights Monitor reported that during the year, judges also sent individuals into “prison exile” by transferring them to severely under-resourced prisons far from their friends and family. CHRI stated that prison exile also harmed the detainee’s family by putting the individual in a location family members could not easily visit.

The joint report stated that in 2022, authorities increasingly prosecuted Christians under Article 500, which criminalizes “engaging in propaganda that educates in a deviant way contrary to the holy religion of Islam” and carries a punishment of up to five years’ imprisonment; or up to 10 years if the defendant received financial or organizational help from outside the country. The report said the increase of such prosecutions “indicates the prevalence of surveillance of Iranian citizens regarding their religious beliefs.” Christians convicted under this article were punished with imprisonment, internal exile, travel bans, community service, and deprivation of some social services. Authorities also often charged Christians under Article 499 of the penal code for membership in a group proscribed by Article 498, which criminalizes any group, society or branch that “aims to perturb the security of the country.” Punishment ranged from two to 10 years in prison. Christian NGOs and the online Christian media outlet Morningstar News reported authorities in February released from Evin Prison Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, as well as Christian converts Hadi Rahimi and Zaman Fadaei, as part of the government’s amnesty marking the anniversary of the 1979 revolution. Nadarkhani had been serving a six-year sentence for acting against national security, propagating house churches, and promoting “Zionist Christianity.” Rahimi and Faadaei were serving four- and six-year sentences, respectively, for “acting against national security” and “spreading ‘Zionist’ Christianity” for attending house churches. In early July, NGOs reported that authorities rearrested Nadarkhani, as well as fellow Church of Iran pastor Matthias (Abdolreza Ali) Haghnejad, on charges of attempting to undermine national security after the government pressured a couple belonging to the church into incriminating the two men. According to CSW, Haghnejad never met the couple and Nadarkhani was only vaguely acquainted with them. Haghnejad already was in government custody awaiting a retrial on 2014 charges of undermining government security and promoting Zionist Christianity. Despite his initial acquittal of those charges, the Supreme Court overturned the verdict and the government rearrested him in late 2022, a short time after his release from prison on other charges. In mid-July, the government moved Haghnejad to a prison in the city of Minab in Hormozgan Province, a thousand miles from his home in the city of Bandar Azali. On January 3, the government arrested Anahita Khademi, Haghnejad’s wife. Authorities released her on bail on January 28, after charging her with “propaganda against the regime” and “disturbing public opinion.” In May, Article 18 reported that a judge in Branch 34 of the Appeals Court in Tehran overturned the conviction of Christian converts Homayoun Zhaveh and Sara Ahmadi, who had been convicted of participating in a house church. The judge broke with legal precedent by ruling that participation in a house church was not illegal. He said gathering with people of one’s own faith was “natural” and having books related to Christianity was “also an extension of their beliefs,” adding there was no evidence the couple had acted against the country’s security or had connections with opposition groups or organizations. Prisoners practicing a religion other than Twelver Shia Islam reported experiencing discrimination. Activists and NGOs reported the government continued to detain or disappear Yarsani activists and community leaders for raising awareness regarding government practices or discrimination against the Yarsani community, such as the requirement that Yarsanis identify themselves as Shia in order to access employment or higher education.

According to Article 18, authorities arrested 166 Christians during the year, compared with 134 in 2022 and 72 in 2021. By year’s end, at least 17 Christians received prison sentences of between three months and five years or fines or flogging on charges such as “acting against national security,” “engaging in propaganda and educational activities for deviant beliefs contrary to the holy sharia,” forming a house church, and “promoting Zionist Christianity.” The NGO said that from June to August, authorities arrested more than 100 Christians in 11 different cities. While most of the individuals were released, many reported being forced to sign commitments to refrain from further Christian activities or ordered to attend Islamic re-education sessions. Others reported they were summoned for further questioning in the days after their release or ordered to leave the country, while one said his employment was terminated at the request of intelligence agents. In November, Article 18 reported authorities gave early release to three members of the Church of Iran who had been sentenced in 2022 to five years in prison for “spreading deviant beliefs contrary to Islam.” Authorities ordered Christians Ahmad Sarparast, Morteza Mashoodkari, and Ayoob Poor-Rezazadeh to work at a factory adjacent to the prison for the remainder of their sentences. Article 18 reported authorities arrested at least 46 Christians in separate incidents across eight cities during the Christmas period. Police in Dezful, Khuzestan Province, raided the home of Christian convert Esmaeil Narimanpour on Christmas eve without a warrant, arrested him, and confiscated his Christian books. Authorities arrested four Christian converts, including an Afghan refugee, on December 11. All five individuals remained in custody at year’s end. Article 18 said, ““We’re particularly concerned for the safety and well-being of those detained, and especially for the Afghan refugee, who is even more vulnerable.” According to a joint report by Article 18, Open Doors, Middle East Concern, and the UK-based Christian advocacy NGO CSW titled Rights Violations Against Christians in Iran: 2023 Annual Report, released in February, IRGC troops continued to raid house churches, despite a 2021 Supreme Court ruling that establishing a house church was not a crime. The report stated Christians charged with “acting against national security” were often allowed conditional release while their cases were pending, but endured detentions before release that were often significantly longer than stipulated by law. The report stated bail demands were high and often required the submission of property title deeds. According to the report, “there are more frequent reports of Christians suffering physical abuse during arrest and interrogation.” Since the charge invoked national security, such cases were usually heard by revolutionary rather than criminal courts.

Christians, particularly evangelicals and other converts from Islam or other recognized faiths, continued to experience disproportionate levels of arrests and detentions and high levels of harassment and surveillance, according to Christian NGOs. Human rights organizations and Christian NGOs continued to report authorities arrested Christians, including members of unrecognized churches, for their religious affiliation or activities and charged them with operating churches in private homes. According to human rights NGOs, the government also continued to enforce the prohibition against proselytizing.

HRANA reported that in August, authorities arrested 90-year-old Baha’i Jamaloddin Khanjani, who had previously served 10 years in prison on charges related to his membership in the informal leadership group Yaran-e Iran. Khanjani was reportedly in failing health. Officials also arrested his daughter Maria Khanjani. The government did not announce the charges against the Khanjanis. BIC reported that after holding Jamaloddin Khanjani in Evin Prison for three weeks, authorities released him when he posted a bail that equated to 15 years of the average Iranian civil service salary. HRANA reported that in February, authorities sentenced another member of Yaran-e Iran, Afif Naeimi, to seven years in prison for “acting against national security by promoting the Baha’i religion among children and adolescents” and “propaganda against Islam.” Throughout the summer, other Baha’is received up to five-year prison sentences on the same charges, including Negin Rezaie, Nakisa Sadeghi, Rameleh Tirgarnejad, Kamyar Habibi, Mahsa Tirgar Behnamiri, Elham Shareghi Arani, Sadaf Sheikhzadeh, Saman Ostovar, Shahrzad Mastouri, Anisa Samieian, and Vesal Momtazi. Human rights groups reported that a common charge leveled against Baha’is was “membership in an illegal group to disrupt national security.” HRANA reported that in July, four Baha’is received five-year prison sentences on this charge – Mansour Amini, Shadi Shahidzadeh, Valiollah Ghadamian, and Attaollah Zafar. Also in July, a court upheld Hami Bahadori’s five-year sentence for “assembly and collusion against national security” and “propaganda against the regime.” In its August 13 statement, BIC said authorities sentenced several Baha’is in Gilan Province to prison, and security agents searched the homes of others and confiscated mobile phones and computers on false charges of spreading “propaganda against the regime” through social media. HRANA reported that on August 25, Nafisa Saadatyar, a Baha’i who worked as a science representative in a private company in Gorgan, was fired following pressure on her employer from IRGC intelligence forces after she was arrested on unspecified charges and released in January. BIC reported that nine other Baha’is who either owned or worked for pharmacies were arrested in Tehran on August 13 after being accused of disrupting pharmaceutical supply chains. Radio Farda reported that intelligence agents had shut down and confiscated more than 40 pharmacies and warehouses belonging to the detainees, who were mostly members of one family. Specific charges against the nine included “drug smuggling and hoarding,” “fraud with medicines,” “money laundering,” and “tax evasion.” In a statement issued on August 16, BIC said, “In the face of growing solidarity between the Baha’is and the general population, the government is trying to drive a wedge by calling these legitimate Baha’i-owned trading businesses ‘hoarders.’” In November, HRANA reported the Court of Appeals in northern Mazandaran Province sentenced 14 Baha’is to imprisonment and fines. The government arrested the Baha’is in 2022 when authorities charged them with “engaging in educational or propaganda activities contrary to Sharia law of Islam.” The Qaem Shahr Revolutionary Court had previously sentenced them to 31 years’ imprisonment and ordered the seizure of all of their assets.

In February, a prominent Kurdish Sunni cleric, Hassan Amini, who leads the Kurdistan Jurisprudence Assembly, told Radio Farda that authorities arrested more than 20 Kurdish religious scholars in various Kurdish cities for supporting antigovernment demonstrations. According to Radio Farda, Amini “condemned the mass arrests … and criticized the silence of Shia clerics on the matter.” CHRI reported in August that at least seven other Kurdish Sunni clerics received lengthy prison sentences during the year, including Seyfollah Hosseini, a Kurdish Sunni prayer leader in Javanrud District, who gave a speech at the funerals for two protestors who state security forces reportedly shot and killed. Authorities sentenced Hosseini to 17 years in prison and 74 lashes for his membership in the religious movement of the Kurdistan Quran School on charges of inciting people to disrupt the security of the country, insulting the founder and leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, disrupting public order, and spreading propaganda against the regime. The court also stripped Hosseini of his clerical status. On February 10, HRWF issued a statement criticizing the government for arresting 15 Ahmadi Muslims, including three minors, in December 2022 because of their religious beliefs and detaining them for eight weeks in Evin Prison. HRWF said the government released two individuals in January and called on it to free the other 13 “and drop all charges related to their religious beliefs.” The NGO said during their detention, authorities pressured the Ahmadis to sign statements defaming and recanting their faith. HRANA reported that in January, the Revolutionary Court sentenced Gonabadi Dervish Mohsen Afrooz to one year in prison on the charge of propaganda against the regime. Afrooz was arrested in October 2022 for allegedly writing slogans on a wall. Human rights groups reported that persecution of the Baha’i community escalated between April and August, with increased raids, confiscation of property, arrests, and convictions. According to BIC, 70-90 Baha’is were in prison during the year. BIC reported there were 60 arrests or imprisonments of Baha’is from mid-July to mid-August. In October, BIC released a report titled The Baha’i Question: Persecution and Resilience in Iran. In the report, BIC stated prison guards and officials physically and psychologically abused Baha’is in custody. The report stated, “Many are held for long periods and are often detained for weeks or months before trial or are released only after posting exorbitantly high bail demands, which often require families to hand over deeds to their properties or business licenses. There have been incidents of torture and beatings while in detention, and hundreds of cases where individuals have been subjected to long periods of solitary confinement, both during pretrial detention and after sentencing.” In an October submission to the UN Human Rights Committee in Geneva, BIC said hundreds of Baha’i shops remained sealed by the authorities, Baha’is were barred from many professions and universities, the government destroyed Baha’i cemeteries, and official efforts to indoctrinate Baha’i children and confiscate property “continue unabated.” The report detailed dozens of cases involving the government’s “violent and repressive actions against [its] own citizens,” adding that “the persecution has affected every Baha’i across generations and within every phase of life, and even in death.”

In January, the news website al-Monitor reported that during a 24-hour period, authorities detained four Sunni clerics in Kurdistan Province and Sistan and Baluchistan Province for criticizing the government’s heavy-handed response to human rights protests in Sunni areas. Abdulmajid Moradzehi, a close associate of Sunni prayer leader Molavi Abdolhamid, was among those detained. CHRI said that in June and July, security forces detained at least seven close associates of Abdolhamid, including his grandson. According to an August report by CHRI, a large number of other Baluch and Kurdish Sunni clerics and religious teachers who criticized the government were arrested and interrogated during the year, and several received harsh sentences, including long terms of imprisonment, internal exile, flogging, a ban on preaching, and permanent defrocking/removal of clerical clothes. Haalvash reported officials arrested Baluch Sunni cleric Molavi Abdolmajid Moradzahi on January 30 and subjected him to torture in prison. Authorities charged him with “disturbing public opinion and speaking with foreign media” for giving interviews to foreign media about protests in Sistan and Baluchistan Province. According to CHRI, authorities arrested fellow Baluch Sunni cleric Molavi Ebrahim Hassan-Zahi on February 25 and reportedly subjected him to torture in prison. CHRI also reported officials arrested at least four additional Baluch Sunni clerics who had criticized the government and summoned three others for interrogation. KHRN stated in its annual report covering March 21, 2022-March 20, 2023 that authorities arrested at least 29 Sunni clerics and activists and Yarsani activists in West Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, and Kermanshah Provinces for their religious or civil-political positions or activities, summoned at least 17 others, and sentenced four to prison terms. The NGO reported that between March and August, at least 10 Kurdish Sunni clerics were sentenced to imprisonment, exile, flogging, and revocation of clerical status, allegedly in response to their speeches in support of the protests.

On August 15, CHRI released a report stating: “Religious leaders of the Sunni Muslim communities in Iran’s Sistan and Baluchistan Province and in the Kurdish provinces of the country are being increasingly targeted by Islamic Republic authorities for persecution, arrest, and imprisonment because of their peaceful criticism of the state’s violent repression.” The report noted Sunni clerics also criticized the state’s disproportionate use of the death penalty against ethnic minority communities such as Baluchis and Kurds

According to United for Iran’s Iran Prison Atlas, at year’s end, authorities held in prison 115 individuals for “religious practice”, including Baluch, Baha’i, Sunni, Christian, and some Shia men and women, compared with at least 75 individuals in 2022 and 67 in 2021. Charges included membership in or leadership of organizations that “disrupt national security” and “spread propaganda against the regime.”

United for Iran reported that in October, a court sentenced Gonabadi Dervish Arash Moradi to three years in prison on charges that included insulting sanctities, propaganda against the regime, and insulting the leadership and the founder of the Islamic Republic. Authorities previously arrested Moradi in 2018 and sentenced him to one year in prison for protesting the expected arrest of Dervish leader Nour Ali Tabandeh.

According to United for Iran, authorities released Gonabadi Dervish Abbas Dehghan in January after he spent almost five years in prison. Authorities arrested Dehghan along with more than 300 others in 2018 following violent clashes between dervishes and security forces in Tehran. According to IranWire, authorities interrogated and physically abused Dehghan for 70 days while in custody, and he suffered a stroke.

In April, Faezah Hashemi, a prisoner granted a leave of absence from Evin Prison and the daughter of former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, reported that authorities had broken bones in the knees of Mahvash Sabet, a 70 year-old Baha’i woman given a 10-year sentence in 2022 on “national security” charges of working to “undermine Islam,” and “furthering the interests of dominant foreign countries.” Authorities convicted fellow Baha’i Fariba Kamalabadi on the same charges. According to Sabet’s daughter, prison authorities denied Sabet adequate medical care and the government seized the family’s assets. Sabet, a well-known poet, and Kamalabadi belonged to the seven-member, informal Baha’i leadership group Yaran-e Iran until their incarceration in 2008 and the dissolution of the group. They appealed their 2022 convictions, but in August, the Court of Appeals of Tehran Province upheld the sentences. Authorities did not allow them to communicate with their attorneys.

In particular, Rehman reported that “there was a marked increase in attacks, targeting and harassment of members of the Baha’i community. Since July 2022, more than 333 incidents have been reported, including at least 80 cases of arbitrary detentions, interrogations, and unlawful arrests. Baha’is have continued to suffer serious human rights violations, including through torture and ill-treatment, destruction of properties, cemetery desecration, as well as denials of education and various forms of economic pressure, including reports of forced closure of Bahaʼi-owned businesses and confiscation of Bahaʼi properties.”

Human rights NGOs continued to report poor conditions and physical mistreatment of religious minorities held in government prisons. In his August report, UN Special Rapporteur Rehman stated he continued “to be deeply concerned that discrimination against ethnic and religious minorities persists” and that he was alarmed at “reports of serious abuses, victimization, killings, and executions of ethnic and religious prisoners, especially those belonging to the [largely Sunni] Baloch and Kurdish minorities.” He said Christian converts and members of the Baha’i community continued to face increased repression and persecution.

On January 19, the European Parliament adopted a resolution condemning “in the strongest possible terms the death sentences of peaceful protesters in Iran,” urging the country to abolish the death penalty, and calling on the government “to review its legal code and eliminate moharebeh (‘enmity against God’) and mofsed-e-filarz (‘corruption on earth’) as punishable offenses” and to release human rights defenders.

NGOs reported that on May 8, authorities executed Youssef Mehrdad and Sadrollah Fazeli-Zareh on charges of apostasy, promoting atheism, insulting the Prophet, and insulting Islamic sanctities. The charges were based on messages the two broadcast on a Telegram channel they administered called “Criticism of Superstition and Religion.” Authorities also claimed to have found evidence on Mehrdad’s phone of a Quran burning. Amnesty International issued a statement on social media condemning the executions, saying, “They were hanged solely for social media posts in a grotesque assault on the rights to life and freedom of religion.”

According to CHRI, authorities increasingly targeted Sunni religious leaders in Sistan and Baluchistan Province and Kurdish-majority provinces for persecution, arrest, and imprisonment in retaliation for their criticism of the government. In June, an agent of the government attempted to assassinate the Friday prayer leader of Zahedan and de facto Sunni leader of the Baluch community, Molavi Abdolhamid, according to the Haalvash and Abdolhamid’s office. According to Haalvash, security guards of Zahedan’s Makki Mosque arrested the would-be assassin, who said the IRGC’s intelligence service orchestrated the plot. Haalvash reported in January that since mass protests began in late 2022, Abdolhamid had experienced “intense pressure” from security forces to stop criticizing the government during his Friday sermons. According to analysis published by the Middle East Institute in January, Abdolhamid was “opting to confront Iran’s supreme leader, a Shia, head on,” using his pulpit “to repeatedly take jabs at Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, calling his rule out of touch and characterizing him as ruthless” while denouncing the government as illegitimate and un-Islamic.

une 15, the UN Secretary-General submitted a report to the UN Human Rights Council on the human rights situation in the country. In it, the Secretary-General stated ethnic and religious minorities were “significantly affected” in the context of the nationwide protests in 2022 and 2023. According to the report, “members of the Baha’i community as well as Armenian and Assyrian Christians continued to face discrimination, particularly in relation to their freedom to practice their religion. Many have been arrested on national security charges and had their places of worship raided.… The rate of arbitrary arrests of members of minority communities has also reportedly increased in the context of recent protests.”

On December 27, HRANA released its annual report on human rights in the country. According to the report, the government executed at least 746 individuals during the year, including 20 women and two juveniles, compared with 565 individuals in 2022 and 299 in 2021. Of the 746 executions, 35 percent were for murder, 56 percent for drug offenses, 2.5 percent for sexual crimes, 1.5 percent for offenses classified as “corruption on earth” or “ideological-political-religious reasons,” and the remainder for other charges. According to HRANA, during the year, authorities arrested 142 citizens for religious reasons, including 15 arrests made without a judicial warrant. Authorities conducted house raids, obstructed economic activity, prevented burials, impeded religious gatherings, and instituted travel bans against religious minorities. Judges sentenced 115 individuals from religious minority groups to imprisonment, lashes, internal exile, or fines. Judges deprived 17 individuals of their “social rights” (often deprivation of educational or employment opportunities) for religious reasons. Additionally, authorities summoned 57 individuals to appear before security and judicial institutions and deprived at least one individual of educational rights due to religion. The majority of human rights violations against religious minorities involved Baha’is (85 percent), but they also impacted Sunnis (11 percent), Yarsans (2 percent), Gonabadi Dervishes, Christians, and other religious minoritie

Legal Framework

Baha’is continued to be targets of violence and social stigma as government repression continued to intensify; perpetrators reportedly continued to act with impunity. There continued to be reports of non-Baha’is dismissing or refusing employment to Baha’is. According to human rights NGOs, converts from Islam to Christianity faced continuing societal pressure and rejection by community members. Shia clerics denounced Sufism in sermons and public statements, and Sunni students reported professors continued to routinely insult Sunni religious figures in class. In Kurdish regions, NGOs reported Shia clerics asked children to spy on Jewish students and that students who befriend Jewish or Christian classmates were surveilled by authorities.

The government continued to regulate Christian religious practices. Christian worship in Farsi was forbidden and official reports and state-run media continued to characterize private Christian churches in homes as “illegal networks” and “Zionist propaganda institutions.” Authorities reportedly continued to deny members of unrecognized religious minority groups access to education and government employment unless they declared themselves as belonging to one of the country’s recognized religions on their application forms.

According to the Baha’i International Community (BIC) and multiple international news organizations, security forces in cities across the country continued to shut down Baha’i-owned businesses, conducted multiple raids of Baha’i homes, arrested Baha’is in their homes or workplaces on unsubstantiated charges, and confiscated money and personal belongings. BIC reported authorities closed 59 businesses from mid-July to mid-August. In a February report, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran Javaid Rehman stated the Baha’i minority “remained most severely persecuted, with a marked increase in arrests, targeting, and victimization,” including being deprived of livelihoods, denied access to higher education, and denied the ability to bury their dead in accordance with Baha’i rites. BIC reported that between March and May, authorities sentenced four Baha’is to five years in prison for seeking to facilitate Baha’i burials. On September 20, parliament approved a bill that, if adopted, would increase penalties for noncompliance with the Islamic dress code as interpreted by authorities, raising prison time for violating the code from two months to 10 years and increasing the fine from 500,000 rials ($12) to up to 360 million rials ($8,600). In April, the government announced a domestic surveillance program, including using street cameras, to enforce the hijab law; authorities closed 45 businesses for allowing patrons to violate the law.

According to the NGO United for Iran’s Iran Prison Atlas, at year’s end, authorities held 115 persons in prison for “religious practice,” including Baluch, Baha’i, Sunni, Christian, and some Shia men and women. Charges included membership in or leadership of organizations that “disrupt national security” and “spread propaganda against the regime.” The NGO Humanists International stated individuals expressing nonreligious views suffered severe persecution, including violence. The government denied individuals access to attorneys and obtained false confessions through torture in some cases. It reportedly detained and held members of religious minorities incommunicado. The NGO Human Rights Without Frontiers (HRWF) reported more than 1,000 Baha’is were either imprisoned, in custody, under house arrest, or waiting for a hearing or to be summoned by a court. According to human rights NGOs, authorities increasingly targeted Sunni religious leaders for persecution, arrest, and imprisonment in retaliation for criticizing the government; some reported being tortured while in custody. Christian converts from Islam reported being detained and forced to sign commitments to refrain from further Christian activities or ordered to attend Islamic re-education sessions. Human rights NGOs reported judges continued to sentence religious minorities to internal exile.

According to UN experts, numerous international human rights NGOs, and media reporting, the government convicted and executed peaceful protesters on charges of “enmity against God” and dissidents on charges of blasphemy and spreading anti-Islamic propaganda. A June report by the UN Secretary-General stated that ethnic and religious minorities were “significantly affected” in the context of the nationwide protests following the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini, a Sunni Kurdish citizen whom the “morality police” (Gasht-e Ershad, literally “guidance patrol”) detained for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly and thereby violating the country’s strict Islamic dress code. The report also stated the government disproportionately imposed death sentences on persons belonging to ethnic minorities, including members of the Baloch, Arab, and Kurdish minorities. According to the Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), the government executed at least 746 individuals during the year, including for offenses classified as “corruption on earth” or “ideological-political-religious reasons,” and arrested 142 citizens for religious reasons. HRANA said the majority of human rights violations against religious minorities involved Baha’is (85 percent), but also impacted Sunnis (11 percent), Yarsans (2 percent), Gonabadi Dervishes, Christians, and other religious minorities.

Prevailing fatwas prescribe the death penalty for apostasy. According to the penal code, the application of the death penalty varies depending on the religion of both the perpetrator and the victim. The penal code criminalizes insulting “divine religions or Islamic schools of thought” and committing “any deviant educational or proselytizing activity that contradicts or interferes with the sacred law of Islam.” Proselytization of religions other than Islam carries a punishment of up to 10 years in prison. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) said these provisions put religious minorities at a higher risk of persecution. The law, as typically interpreted, prohibits Muslim citizens from changing or renouncing their religious beliefs. The constitution states that Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians are the only recognized religious minorities permitted to worship and form religious societies “within the limits of the law

sther as proto-feminist for a few reasons. First, because this commentary demonstrates how the systematic domination of women served broader imperial interests and was also enhanced by blurring the relation between patriarchal domination of households and despotic domination of the empire. Under Ahasuerus, women (starting with Vashti) had to be controlled or neutralized so that the household could serve as a model for the state, even while the state claimed to be modeled on the structure of households. This sort of mutually reinforcing dynamic or political cosmology is by now a commonplace of social analysis, but it wasn’t in 18

The first set of letters disempowering women paved the way for Ahasuerus to become an absolute monarch and it was only under those conditions that a genocide of the kind Haman plotted could ever have a chance to succeed. To put it simply, the murder of Vashti and the suppression of women throughout the empire paved the way for Haman’s projected Holocaus

On the level of political rhetoric, Ahasuerus’ executive order must have seemed a master stroke because of all that it simultaneously accomplished. Malbim thinks that by emphasizing that the letters were to be sent in the diverse languages of the polyglot empire, Ahasuerus was once again stoking popular resentment against the Persian elites who used to demand that all state business be conducted in Persian.[15]Apparently, “cultural diversity” can be coopted by authoritarian state power as easily as any other ideology under the right circumstances. More importantly, Ahasuerus’ letter would have distracted people from his naked power grab by disguising it as the utterly ordinary resentment of a husband whose wife has defied him, guaranteeing the support of other men who feared the rebellion of their own wives in turn. Could he have found a more potent strategy for harnessing their resentment? In the 1970’s it began to be said in some quarters that “the personal is political,” but Ahasuerus’ letters represent the utter suppression of that frame by insisting that the political is merely personal. Whether

Ahasuerus’ cabinet would have to work quickly, because Malbim assumes that both Vashti and the Persian noblewomen with whom she had feasted had already seen through this subterfuge and might work to subvert it.[13] So they released a royal edict banning her from the king’s presence almost immediately before following up with seemingly unrelated letters “to every province according to its writing and to every people according to their language that every man should be master in his own house and speak according to the language of his peo

mphasizing that her own rank came first.[11] Read this way, her refusal of the king’s summons constitutes a self-conscious act of political resistance because she understood what her husband was trying to accomplish at her expense.

shti, we have seen, poses a special problem for Ahasuerus. She is at once the key to his legitimacy in the eyes of the traditional Persian elites and the most distressing evidence that his independent power is limited. So, at the end of his long populist campaign, when his heart was “merry with wine,” Ahasuerus cleverly sends his chamberlains to summon the queen.[7] Sending his own servants rather than those who normally attend upon her was meant, in Malbim’s reading, to signal his disrespect. If she answered his call it would be a symbolic victory for him and if she refused it might present him with an opportunity to move against her. Directly attacking her dignity as the daughter of a royal house, he he also summons her “to show the people and the princes her beauty,” as if her attractiveness outstripped the importance of her royal person and pedigree.[8] By demanding that she appear wearing her royal crown, according to one well-known midrash, the king went so far as to intimate that she should appear before the gaze of his servants, dressed in nothing e

pretense of a state governed by law for the common good may not have appealed so much to the provincial nobles chafing under imperial rule or the underclass of Shushan whom Ahasuerus had been so careful to flat

among the leaders of the disenfranchised, non-Persian provinces and the lower Persian classes who had been systematically excluded from most of the benefits of the constitutional—but colonial and deeply class conscious—state Ahasuerus had come to dominate.

ld have opened the state coffers so brazenly for his own aggrandizement. Ahasuerus understood that people would be less likely to object to the precedent he was trying to set if they were included among its

Ahasuerus seized power from a constitutional monarch but was set on absolutizing his rule through a series of very intentional stratagems that required him to sideline or eliminate his wife. Faced by the ancient rabbinic conundrum whether to portray Ahasuerus as a wise or a foolish king, Malbim decides from the outset to treat him as someone who knows what he wants and works deliberately to achieve his

that the systematic disempowerment of women in general helped to create the political conditions for genocide in Megillat Esther

The younger one's lineage had a strange son with bird's eyes and bulging eyelids, broad forehead, turquoise eyebrows, elevated nose, conch shell teeth, webbed hand like a duck's limbs, and with a majestic look

"When there was no difference of king and subject in Tibet, there in the Shakya lineage were: Great Shakyan, Shakya Lichhavi, and Shakya Ri bgrag. From them came sKyabs seng, whose one of the younger sons fled to the Himalayas with his platoon. From the summit of Lha ri rol po mountain of Yarlung in Tibet, he descended through lha skes [god's staircase] to the four Tsan sgo. The people proclaimed him as a King, who descended from the sky; they received him in a throne and took him on their shoulder to the land. Therefore, the name, Napeenthroned king, this was the first king of Tibet.

The Buddhist tradition of gSang ba chos lugs traces the origin of the first Tibetan King to Indian kings of Shakya lineage of Suryavamsa.

the Bon tradition here talks about the King coming from the Gods of thirtythird stages of heaven. A common Bon theory of the creation of the universe and the origin of the Bonpo gods by Phya Yekhen Chenpo [Tib:Phyva ye mkhyen chen po] have been narrated. There are two golden and two turquoise flowers, whereas in other sources, there is an account of a cosmic egg. Nyatri Tsanpo has been shown as the great-grandson of Bon god Yablha Daldrug residing in thirteenth stages of heaven. His father Khri bar gyi bdun tshig was sent to the land of rMu where he lived with the eldest daughter Dre rmu dre tsan mo of the Lord of rMu and Nyatri Tsanpo was born. Nyatri Tsanpo descended to the Mount Lha ri gyang tho to become the king of Tibet. He built the fort Yun bu bla sgang, defeated the king of Sumpa shang and took over the twelve regions of Tibet.

Yang gsang the' u rang lugs means ultra-secret tradition of theurang [Tib: The'u rang] origin is that the king was said to be of Theurang [Goblin race] from sPu region of Tibet.

Tibetan scholars and historians have broadly categorized these theories on the basis of three traditional accounts: bsGrags pa bon lugs, gSang ba chos lugs and Yang gsang The'u rang lugs

gSang ba chos lugs means Secret Buddhist tradition and the origin of the king was attributed to the Shakya lineage of Indian kings and Mahabharata epic.

. bsGrags pa bon lugs means Bon tradition. It proclaims that the origin of Nyatri Tsanpo is traced to the genealogy of native Bon god Yablha Daldrug

True, much of Life is with People is an exercise in avoidance in its portrait of a way of life that Zborowski knew to be darker and more complex than the bright, Chagall-like hues in which he painted it. The book’s title is drawn from a chapter on the pleasures of community in a world where all knew everything about everyone else—”there are no secrets in the shtetl”—which was just the sort of place Zborowski would have deplored. Yet, embedded inside the book, too, is a story about class and status, sheyne and proste Yiden, that is probably as sincere as he would ever tell.

till, Zborowski exerted decisive influence on all aspects of the book, none more than on its emphasis on social status. On rereading Life is with People, it is striking how pivotal this theme is to its portrait of Jewish life. Social stratification is, of course, a central theme in the social sciences, but it was Zborowski who thrust the issue into the heart of the group’s deliberations with an interest that seemed anything but dispassionate. At nearly every meeting of the group there was close analysis of the impact on religious and cultural life of “sheyne” and “proste” yidn. The index heading in Life is with People for “social stratification” lists sixteen subheadings, and the book lavishes no fewer than seven pages on who sits closest to the Eastern Wall in the synagogue (no wonder it was picked up on by the writers of Fiddler on the Roof).

Ukranian town of 28,000, and though he might, conceivably, have cherished the idea of writing an ethnology of Eastern European Jewry, it was not a culture that he himself held dear. In fact, he had been estranged from it since adolescence, and his most significant professional experience was not as an anthropologist (he never really received a doctorate, as he sometimes claimed, from the Sorbonne), but as a Sovi

is an ethnography that is also a “how-to” book

ife is with People examines shtetls not in their considerable variety but as instances of a single ideal type presented in the present tense, as if it still existed.

The world it explored was, it insisted, continuous with—but also distinct from—everything around it, not quite part of Russia or Poland yet inside both, a kind of island of unadulterated Yiddishkayt before it was diluted, then destroyed.

blind spots within black liberation theology, especially in relation to the invisibility of black women and, later, black sexuality.

Black churches were not much better, with their oft-misguided aspirations toward white respectability

Instead, he aligned with the god of the Hebrew prophets and Jesus, and asserted that God and God in Christ are black insofar as they stand on the side of the oppressed, acting in history to liberate the suffering “by any means necessary.”

the white church as the Antichrist insofar as it undergirded and perpetuated black suffering as the white supremacist will of God or, worse yet, remained silent in the face of black dehumanization.

African American churches provided spaces for not only spiritual formation but also political activism.

Both during and after the end of slavery, African Americans began to establish their own congregations, parishes, fellowships, associations and later denominations.

By 1706, six Colonies had passed laws that declared that Africans’ Christian status did not alter their social condition as slaves. Consequently, missionaries created “slave catechisms,” modified religious instruction manuals that instructed enslaved Africans about Christianity while reinforcing their enslavement.

They widely supposed that British laws mandated the freedom of all baptized Christians, and thus white slaveholders initially refused to grant missionaries permission to instruct enslaved Africans into the Christian faith

European slave traders dismissed Africans as “heathenish” to justify their enslavement of Africans and the coercive proselytization to Christianity.

o many men are isolated and alone today, and in that place we are susceptible to the whims, temptations, and empty show of the devil. Many men have buddies with whom they can watch sports and drink beer, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But we also need to have brothers who know who we are, what we are going through, and to whom we can be accountable.

Through the ascetic way, we are humbled. By denying ourselves, we learn to depend upon God for everything and to ask our brothers for prayerful accountability, support, and encouragement.

Asceticism means training. Though it is often underemphasized in our time, throughout Church history we see the importance of asceticism in the teachings and lives of the saints, our fathers in the faith. Asceticism is about saying “no” to lesser things so that we are able to say “yes” when God asks greater things from us. Though we should strive to reject evil in every instance, we should also abstain from good things for periods of time so that we can remain focused on what matters most in our lives.

Prayer is conversation with God. The time you spend in prayer during Exodus 90 is the most important part of the journey. Your daily Scripture passage and reflection from Exodus have been crafted to help you start your conversation with the Lord each day. We offer them for men like you every day of the year, not just during Exodus 90.

What is uncommon in our time is men who are free. A free man is not a perfect man who has it all together, but one who remembers who he is: a son of God whom God has called forth for love. And he knows how much more he can become by the power of grace unfolding in his life over time, and with the support of brothers.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was chief guest and also the master of ceremonies and the official yajmaan (patron of a religious ritual) during the bhoomi pujan at the temple site. UP Governor Anandiben Patel, Chief Minister Adityanath,

rdict in the Ayodhya title dispute case, saying that the Hindu parties will be given the disputed land where the Babri Masjid once stood. The Sunni Waqf Board, the biggest Muslim litigant in the case, will be given five acres at a separate "prominent" location in Ayodhya.

Allahabad high court rules that the disputed land in Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid was shall be divided into three parts. A two-thirds portion is to be shared by two Hindu plaintiffs and one-third will be given to the Sunni Muslim Waqf Board. Plaintiffs representing Lord Ram (i.e. VHP), the Nirmohi Akhara and the Waqf Board were declared joint title-holders of the property.

The ASI submits a report saying that there is evidence of a 10th century temple beneath the mosque. Its report is refuted by archaeologists and historians.

BJP rules out committing itself to the construction of a temple in its election manifesto for Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. VHP confirms deadline of 15 March to begin construction. Hundreds of volunteers converge on site. At least 58 people are killed in an attack on a train in Godhra which is carrying Hindu activists returning from Ayodhya. Between 1,000 and 2,000 people, mostly Muslims, die in riots in Gujarat following the train attack in March. Narendra Modi is chief minister of Gujarat at the time.

The Supreme Court in the Ismail Faruqui case says that 'Mosque' is not integral to Islam owing to the fact that 'Namaz' can be offered anywhere.

errorists orchestrate a series of deadly bomb blasts across Bombay, allegedly to avenge the demolition of the Babri Masjid.

crowd of almost 150,000 people gather to listen to speeches by BJP and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leaders - including LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi - at the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The crowd later storms the mosque and demolishes it in a few hours. The demolition occurred despite assurances from the state government to the Supreme Court that the mosque would not be harmed. After the demolition of the Babri Masjid, on the evening of December 6, 1992, kar sevaks started attacking Muslim residents of Ayodhya, ransacking and demolishing their houses. Eighteen Muslims were murdered, almost all their houses and shops were torched and destroyed, including 23 local mosques. Additionally, riots broke out in different parts of the country, including Mumbai, and around 2,000 people were killed.

BJP emerges as the second-largest party with 121 seats in the Lok Sabha following the general elections but the Congress under Narasimha Rao forms the government at the Centre.

BJP President L.K. Advani launches his Rath Yatra from Somnath to Ayodhya to gather support for the Ram temple. He is arrested in Samastipur in Bihar by the government of Lalu Prasad Yadav in November, 1990. Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Ashok Singhal is also arrested.

In the recently concluded general elections, the BJP emerges as the third-largest party with 89 seats and supports V.P. Singh's National Front government from outside

Rajiv Gandhi government allows the VHP to perform shilanyas (laying of the foundation stone) for the Ram temple on November 9, 1989, on the disputed land.

A district judge directs that the Babri Masjid gates be unlocked and Hindus be allowed to worship there. In protest, Muslims set up the Babri Masjid Action Committee. According to historian Ramachandra Guha, "the judge's order was widely believed to have been directed from Delhi, from the Prime Minister's Office, no less. The local administration seemed to know of the judgment beforehand, for the locks were opened within an hour of the verdict." Television crews from Doordarshan were also present. Rajiv Gandhi was prime minister at the time and the move was part of the 'divide and rule' politics of a government that was coming under a cloud because of corruption charges. A few months after appeasing Hindu communalists, he did the same with their Muslim counterparts.

General elections are held for the 9th Lok Sabha in the aftermath of Indira Gandhi's assassination. The BJP wins only two seats out of 541. The party's openly Hindutva politics and espousal of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement fails to yield dividends

du groups form a committee to spearhead the construction of the Ram temple as the Ram Janmabhoomi movement gathers momentum. BJP leader L.K. Advani assumes leadership of the movement.

While the inner courtyard remains locked, prayers are allowed from outside. An interim injunction allows a pujari in but forbids entry to others

dols of Lord Ram are planted by Hindu Mahasabha activists inside the mosque. The mosque is then locked. District magistrate K.K. Nayar refused to remove the idol on the premise that this would lead to large-scale rioting. He later joined the Jan Sangh, the precursor to the BJP, and was also elected as an MP.

: There is no record or discussion of the mosque having been built over a demolished temple, nor indeed is there any record of claims being made that the site was the birthplace of Rama.

“We are not talking about citizens,” said Ramesh Shinde, a spokesman for the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, a Hindu organization that is considered a far-right group. “We are talking about migrants.”

Mr. Modi’s supporters employ a certain logic when defending the bill’s exclusion of Muslims. They say Muslims are not persecuted in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan, which is mostly true. They also say that when India and Pakistan were granted independence in 1947, the British carved out Pakistan as a haven for Muslims, while India remained predominantly Hindu. To them, the extension of that process is to ask illegal Muslims migrants to leave India and seek refuge in neighboring, mainly Muslim nations.

e has called illegal migrants from Bangladesh “termites,” and along with his other statements made clear that Muslims were his target. Mr. Shah has also promised to impose the citizenship test from Assam on the entire country.

he leaders of the opposition Indian National Congress party are trying to paint the bill as a danger to India’s democracy. After India won its independence, its founding leaders, Mohandas K. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru among them, made a clear decision: Even though the country was 80 percent Hindu, it would not be an officially Hindu nation. Minorities, especially Muslims, would be treated equally.

Muslims also are Hindus.” (This is a common Hindu nationalist belief: that India’s Muslims are relatively recent converts, even though Islam arrived in India hundreds of years ago.

Under Mr. Modi’s leadership, anti-Muslim sentiment has become blatantly more mainstream and public. Intimidation and attacks against Muslim communities have increased in recent years. And overt displays of Hindu piety and nationalism have become central in pop culture and politics.

First came the Assam citizenship tests. Then Mr. Modi stripped away autonomy and statehood for Kashmir, which used to be India’s only Muslim-majority state. And last month, Hindu fundamentalists scored a big court victory allowing them to build a new temple over the ruins of a demolished mosque in the flash point city of Ayodhya.

Now, Mr. Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, or B.J.P., is hoping to expand that kind of citizenship test to other states. And the new legislation would become a guiding principle for who could hope to call themselves Indians.Mr. Modi and his party are deeply rooted in an ideology that sees India as a Hindu nation.

that they or their ancestors were Indian citizens. Approximately two million people — many of them Muslims, and many of them lifelong residents of India — were left off the state’s citizenship rolls after that exercise.

Now they were telling me this was not the country they had staked their faith in, and for the first time they spoke of working to make sure their children would become part of the large Sikh diaspora in Canada, Britain or the United State

Shortly after, in August, Mr. Modi abrogated the autonomy of Muslim-majority Kashmir. The decision was in keeping with the long-stated demands of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the Hindu nationalist mother ship whose influence over Indian society today can be compared to the sway of the Communist Party in China.

The court concluded that while excavations by the Archaeological Survey of India at the site revealed the ruins of a Hindu religious structure dating back to the 12th century, there was no evidence to suggest this structure existed or was demolished when the mosque was built.The judgment also states that the two events that have served as the basis for Hindu claims — the supposedly miraculous overnight appearance of Hindu idols in the mosque in 1949 and the demolition of the mosque in 1992 — were both criminal acts, the handiwork of Hindu fundamentalists. Yet this verdict amounts to rewarding criminality.

The movement to build Rama’s temple and the demolition of the Babri Masjid led to the B.J.P.’s meteoric rise in electoral politics — from two seats out of 541 in the Parliament in 1984 to forming a national government in 1998. The campaign for Rama’s temple ushered in an era of majoritarian politics in defiance of the promise of secular nationalism that has held together this multireligious country since 1947.

On Dec. 6, 1992, a mob led by the leaders of the B.J.P. and its affiliates illegally demolished the mosque, sparking riots that killed more than 2,000 people.

Amid appeals to Hindu pride, Mr. Advani and other B.J.P. leaders framed the building of the temple as the way to end what they termed as thousand years of servitude to Muslim rulers.

The piece of land where the temple for Rama will be built is considered by many Hindus to be his exact birthplace. But the land in question and its ownership have been long disputed. The Babri Masjid, a mosque built in 1528, stood there until Dec. 1992, when a Hindu mob demolished it. Hindu and Muslim litigants had been fighting for its ownership for decades. When the Supreme Court announced its decision,

India also drew criticism after numerous seats were left empty on an Air Force flight on Tuesday that evacuated Indian citizens and officials from the country’s embassy in Kabul.

India’s government said on Tuesday that it would prioritize taking in Hindus and Sikhs from Afghanistan — a move that drew comparisons to a contentious 2019 citizenship law, enacted under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that discriminates against Muslims.

But on the dank right, I believe that the liberal treatment of young white males has been one of the causes for this recoil and eruption. What you had was a toxic combination of a bad economy of young men being told repeatedly that they are the cancer of the planet, that their masculinity is toxic, that their skin is the blight of the world, and their heterosexuality is a hate crime.

And what happened in the last five years is that virtually every respected institution in the United States disgraced itself. The health industry, the military, the Supreme Court, Congress — everybody face planted, boom. What that left is that a lot of normies were gobsmacked, saying: What happened to the America I grew up in? Everything blew up. Nobody’s making sense. And it’s the lockdowns, it’s the vaccines, it’s the trannies, it’s just — it’s clown world.

Christendom that learns lessons from history. And some of those lessons that you learn from history, maybe the person who wrote that book or influenced this legislation, they may have been a feminist or liberal or whatever, but what’s important is whether it’s just and prudent and right. And if it is and it aligns with the Bible, then I’m more than happy to go with it.

Yeah, that’s hers. So basically, I believe that it would be wise and prudent for us to have a system of endowment for the wife. That would mean that if a husband just thought he found someone cuter, he would take a serious financial hit.

OK. So there’s a “no taunting the Christian majority” soft policy.

We’d acknowledge that Jesus is Lord. And we would say: This is a Protestant Christian country. And we have successfully worked out how to relate to Catholics and Jews — we have a long history of that. We do not know how to take three million Muslims who want to live under Shariah law and put them in the middle of Michigan. We don’t have the mechanism or the wisdom.

o, I call myself a theocratic libertarian, and theocratic means, if we outlaw something, I want a Bible verse, ideally the Ten Commandments, if we make something against the law. But if it has to do with the manufacturing and sale of widgets, or the thoughts a person thinks, or the beliefs that they have, I’m a libertarian

It’s got to be church planting, evangelism, persuasion.

I would much prefer to see an Alfred approach, where you take the principles of the law, you apply them, you stand by the principles, and then, using Christian prudence and wisdom, you push in that direction until you get the results that you want

OK. Then what about the crimes themselves? What does it mean for a society to respect the Ten Commandments in law? You’ve already said that you would restore sodomy laws. Would you have laws against adultery and fornication?

soft establishment, and that this broke down in the 1950s and 1960s. There were Supreme Court rulings outlawing school prayer — these kinds of things. And this then led to things like Roe v. Wade, that legalized abortion. And therefore, the goal of religious conservatives should be to do things like overturn Roe

That’s why I would call myself a theocratic libertarian. There is a true libertarian element in this, and yet, the transcendent grounding for what we’re talking about means that we acknowledge the authority of God.We have racked up quite a body count of awful crimes, and I believe the only way out is for us to repent and turn to Christ. This would be things like no more Pride parades, no more drag queen story hours, no more abortion on demand, no more legalized same-sex unions — all of that, done.

As is all too obvious, the Washington bureaucracy has increasingly become hostile to Christianity and especially to white Christian men. Kirk understood this, and he could see that “Christian nationalism”

the state constitutions at the founding were thoroughly Christian political constitutions. Kirk also accurately related that 55 of the 56 signers of the Declaration were Christians, and the common law was undergirded by Christian ethics and legal principles—such as presumption of innocence, due process, and jury of your peers.

We must defend the Christian heritage and institutions that gave birth to America. Christianity is the key, irreplaceable element. If we lose it, it’s not so much that America will fall, it’s that America will become evil.”

Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” and a “spiritual battle is coming to the West and the enemies are woke-ism or Marxism combining with Islamism to go after what we call the American way of life.”

d Islam

Christianization of America, including our political institutions and elite officials

outspoken Christian faith

Not doing “la bise,” the kiss on the cheek that many French and Europeans use to greet each other, was on his list.

religious neutrality of state institutions. In 2010, it outlawed the fully face-covering niqab and burqa everywhere in public, arguing that those garments threaten public safety and represent a rejection of a society of equal citizens.

“If you are Muslim and you hide your face for religious reasons, you are liable to a fine and a citizenship course where you will be taught what it is to be ‘a good citizen,’ ” said Fatima Khemilat, a fellow at the Political Science Institute of Aix-en-Provence. “But if you are a non-Muslim citizen in the pandemic, you are encouraged and forced as a ‘good citizen’ to adopt ‘barrier gestures’ to protect the national community.”

“What we must attack is Islamist separatism,” he told the nation, saying extremists preyed upon desperate Muslims in desolate neighborhoods, basically creating anti-French enclaves by spreading their radical Islamic “ideology” and “project.” He also made some sweeping, incendiary generalizations, such as that “Islam is a religion that is in crisis today, all over the world.”

The problem with that is French Muslims may feel extremely targeted by what Macron’s government is doing. After all, Holocaust denial is criminalized, which means some forms of expression are outlawed in France. But when it comes to images of the prophet, Macron says that’s fair play.

Publications such as Charlie Hebdo and Jyllands-Posten aim to incite the very passions that they simultaneously criticize Muslims for harboring. Theology and issues of semiotic representation are thus not of primary importance here. Rather, the performative political power of mass media, exercised from a hegemonic position against a vulnerable minority, defines events such as the Charlie Hebdo attack, the Jyllands-Posten cartoon controversy, and the Rushdie Affair.

Besides showing insensitivity to their target, caricatures like Muhammad with a bomb instead of turban on his head contribute to entrenching the mindless Islamophobia that sees all Muslims as enemies of the West and its freedoms. Not a wise move if one is concerned either with integrating immigrants from the Maghreb in French society, or with avoiding the “clash of civilizations” which Islamophobes seem so eager to bring on.

First, Muslims, like Jews, are not counseled to “turn the other cheek” when attacked. But this acceptance of violence in self-defense does not entail violent aggression against the defenseless. Thus, the Charlie Hebdo murders cannot be called Muslim: what looks like a Muslim proclivity for violence may actually be more accurately described as the absence of a Muslim pacifism. Religions come in different shapes: unarmed prophets, like Jesus or the Buddha, occupy a different moral universe than armed prophets, like Muhammad or Moses. But, just because a prophet is armed doesn’t mean he will attack the defenseless.

This mess is ours and it needs no “outsiders” to provoke it. Where we err, is when we take them as the embodiment of our malfunctioning and conflicted category of religion. When they are provoked, we can select from this homegrown mess to simultaneously assert our foundational right to attack the gods—with all the aggression that a nothing deserve

Blasphemy as a category invokes the specter of religion, not ethnicity, which is why it is safe. Western modernity constructs itself on the assumption that the gods do not exist—or that they do not exist for all, which is the same thing.

Charlie Hebdo published many images of Muslim-like characters, some of them acting violently. Are such images meant to represent the generality of Muslims? In the way that, for example, the 1920s Nazi magazine, Der Sturmer, would have a cartoon of a Jewish financier, the undesirable qualities of whom—heartless, exploitative, greedy and so on—was meant to be about Jews as such. Yet if it is meant to lampoon jihadists, it is inoffensive and embodies a form of political defiance against terrorism.

We are Charlie because we are Malala; je suis Charlie because I Am Malala.

For French authorities to demand that Muslims now publicly proclaim that they “are” Charlie—that they effectively endorse the content of the cartoons—is not to defend free speech. It is to enforce compulsory, official speech—the very opposite of free speech.

Though it doesn’t cause violence, it is often the excuse for it. But religion can’t “do” anything—motivate actions or sway thinking—by itself. It is not a disembodied thing that has power of its own. It is simply a part of culture, something that people can use and abuse, for good or for ill. And lately, much of it has been for ill indeed.

When right-wing patriots almost literally wrap themselves in flags as they plot to assassinate the President of the United States—which they have—few people blame nationalism itself. Rather, they look at the mixture of psychological and political motives that may have brought the conspirators to their savage plans. When a whole group or culture adopts a vicious form of extreme nationalism—Nazism comes to mind—again it is not nationalism itself that we blame, but a perverted form of it crafted to buttress the power-hungry designs of a political junta.

Because this “us versus them” is very accessible to young Muslims everywhere through the Internet and other social media, it is no surprise that this rhetoric resonates with their daily experience in European societies and therefore make some of them easy recruits for the global jihad.

This rhetoric presents Islam as an external religion that threatens the core liberties of European democracies and therefore needs to be limited or circumvented, following the argument made famous by the French Revolutionary Saint-Just: “No freedom for the enemies of freedom”

Muslims claiming that they could be protected by existing legislations across Europe (including France) that actually limit freedom of speech in cases of inciting racial hatred or denying the Holocaust.

In the French context as well as all over Europe, we have witnessed in the last 20 years an increasing political resistance against the practices of Islam and their visibility in public spaces: from the ban on hijab (head covering) and niqab (full face covering) to the limitations on mosque-building, halal slaughtering, and even circumcision. Muslims have the feeling that being or looking like a practitioner of the Islamic faith will ostracize them, not to mention that this hostility goes hand in hand with concrete discriminations against the practice of the religion: women barred from entering public buildings because they wear hijabs, discrimination on the job market, in the workplace, etc.

These measures are, in fact, part of a climate in which laïcité and republican values, while never clearly defined, have been used as a justification to scrutinize and interfere with the bodies, sensibilities, and practices of Muslim citizens (particularly women).

In no country is freedom of expression absolute, and the risk of turning the libertarian-anarchist soixante-huisards of Charlie Hebdo into martyrs in a liberal free speech pantheon through liberal media megaphones, is to feed the flames of stigmatization and polarization

There is no single cause of terrorism—whether right-wing extremist or salafi-jihadist. The Paris terrorists are dead and do not speak. But we can be reasonably sure that their hatred and resentment did not relate exclusively to caricatures and cartoonists. Through the rituals of mourning and commemoration, these have been turned into core postmortem symbols of French elitist liberal and secular culture. The terror and violence seem also to have spoken about the longue durée of French-Arab-North African relations; its legacies of extreme brutality and violence on all sides; and its long afterlife in everyday lives marked by segregation, exclusion, marginalization and discriminatory policing in the French banlieues.

. But it is not unlikely that the rush by many in the United States and Europe to identify with the publication had something to do with the fact that the killers were Muslims and the cartoons were of Muhammad. By conflating form and content, Je suis Charlie lent a patina of liberal respectability to anti-Islamicism: “I disapprove of you, and I will defend to the death my right to say so.”

Muhammad deeply offensive, and critics have called the magazine racist and demeaning of the country’s cultural minorities, especially its sizable populations of North African origin. Notably, its offices were firebombed after the magazine named Muhammad its “editor in chief” for an issue on sharia in 2011.

Mr. Paty was a strong believer in laïcité, the strict secularism that separates religion from the state in France. Ms. Davoust recalled Mr. Paty once asking a young girl wearing a cross around her neck in school to take it off.

In a country guided by strict secularism, such actions are a violation of French law and regarded as signs of radicalization by the authorities — and they have led to many sports clubs being placed under surveillance.

Located in a public facility, the club was investigated by the local authorities because some members prayed in the locker room and asked women to cover their arms and legs, according to the French news media.

We don’t want your otherness because we want you to be like us,’”

Jean-Pierre Obin, a former senior national education official, said that public schools played a leading role in “the cultural assimilation and political integration” of immigrant children who “were turned into good little French” and no longer felt “Italian, Spanish, Portuguese or Polish.” Other institutions that also played this role — the Catholic church, unions and political parties — have been weakened, leaving only the schools, he said.

Offended by cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad shown in a class on free speech given by the teacher, Samuel Paty, 47, the teenager beheaded him a week ago with a long knife before being gunned down by the police.

The class decides everyone should be able to use the bathroom that makes them feel comfortable, and makes new, inclusive signs to hang on the bathroom doors.

, “reveals its failure to accept and account for a fundamental truth: LGBTQ people exist. They are part of virtually every community and workplace of any appreciable size. Eliminating books depicting LGBTQ individuals as happily accepted by their families will not eliminate student exposure to that concept.”

ons Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. Focus mode setTimeout(()=>{try{if(-1===document.cookie.indexOf("c_mId="))return;const e=window.localStorage.getItem("FocusMode");if(!e)return;if(!JSON.parse(e).enabled)return;const o=document.querySelector(".focus-toggle"),t=o?o.querySelector(".toggle-switch-button"):void 0;if(!o||!t)return;document.documentElement.classList.add("focus","focus-enabled"),o.classList.remove("hidden"),t.classList.add("is-checked")}catch(e){console.warn("Error retrieving data for Focus Mode",e)}},0) Subscribe or Log In Profile Sign Out Show Search Search Query Submit Search Advertisement California The 9 LGBTQ+ children’s books targeted in high court ruling upending education policy A selection of books featuring LGBTQ+ characters that are part of a Supreme Court case are pictured April 15 in Washington. (Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press) By Jenny GoldStaff Writer Follow June 27, 2025 8:01 PM PT 8 Share via Close extra sharing options Email Facebook X LinkedIn Threads Reddit WhatsApp Copy Link URL Copied! Print Picture books are not usually the stuff of Supreme Court rulings. But on Friday, a majority of justices ruled that parents have a right to opt their children out of lessons that offend their religious beliefs — bringing the colorful pages of books like “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” and “Pride Puppy” into the staid public record of the nation’s highest court.The ruling resulted from a lawsuit brought by parents in Montgomery County, Md., who sued for the right to remove their children from lessons where LGBTQ+ storybooks would be read aloud in elementary school classes from kindergarten through 5th grade. The books were part of an effort in the district to represent LGBTQ+ families in the English language arts curriculum.In a 6-3 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that schools must “notify them in advance” when one of the disputed storybooks would be used in their child’s class, so that they could have their children temporarily removed. The court’s three liberals dissented. Advertisement Politics Parents may pull their children from classes that offend their religion, Supreme Court rules Supreme Court hands down a major victory for parents’ rights June 27, 2025 As part of the the decisions, briefings and petitions in the case, the justices and lawyers for the parents described in detail the story lines of nine picture books that were part of Montgomery County’s new curriculum. In her dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor even reproduced one, “Uncle Bobby’s Wedding,” in its entirety. Here are the nine books that were the subject of the case:Pride PuppyAuthor: Robin Stevenson Illustrator: Julie McLaughlin Book “Pride Puppy” published by Orca Book Publishers. (Orca Book Publishers) “Pride Puppy,” a rhyming alphabet book for very young children, depicts a little girl who loses her dog during a joyful visit to a Pride parade. The story, which is available as a board book, invites readers to spot items starting with each of the letters of the alphabet, including apple, baseball and clouds — as well as items more specific to a Pride parade.Lawyers representing the parents said in their brief that the “invites students barely old enough to tie their own shoes to search for images of ‘underwear,’ ‘leather,’ ‘lip ring,’ ‘[drag] king’ and ‘[drag] queen,’ and ‘Marsha P. Johnson,’ a controversial LGBTQ activist and sex worker.”The “leather” in question refers to a mother’s jacket, and the “underwear” to a pair of green briefs worn over tights by an older child as part of a colorful outfit. Advertisement The Montgomery County Public Schools stopped teaching “Pride Puppy” in the midst of the legal battle. California As children’s book bans soar, sales are down and librarians are afraid. Even in California Book bans are tanking sales of children’s books. Schools and libraries aren’t buying books about LGBTQ+ issues and race as they brace for culture war pushback. Dec. 12, 2024 Love, VioletAuthor: Charlotte Sullivan WildIllustrator: Charlene Chua Book “Love Violet” published by macmillan publishers. (macmillan) The story describes a little girl named Violet with a crush on another girl in her class named Mira, who “had a leaping laugh” and “made Violet’s heart skip.” But every time Mira tries to talk to her, Violet gets shy and quiet.On Valentine’s Day, Violet makes Mira a special valentine. As Violet gathers the courage to give it to her, the valentine ends up trampled in the snow. But Mira loves it anyway and also has a special gift for Violet — a locket with a violet inside. At the end of the book, the two girls go on an adventure together.Lawyers for the parents describe “Love, Violet” as a book about “two young girls and their same-sex playground romance.” They wrote in that “teachers are encouraged to have a ‘think aloud’ moment to ask students how it feels when they don’t just ‘like’ but ‘like like’ someone.” Advertisement Born Ready: The True Story of a Boy Named PenelopeAuthor: Jodie Patterson Illustrator: Charnelle Pinkney Barlow Book “Born Ready” published by Random House. (Random House) In “Born Ready,” 5-year-old Penelope was born a girl but is certain they are a boy. “I love you, Mama, but I don’t want to be you. I want to be Papa. I don’t want tomorrow to come because tomorrow I’ll look like you. Please help me, Mama. Help me be a boy,” Penelope tells their mom. “We will make a plan to tell everyone we know,” Penelope’s mom tells them, and they throw a big party to celebrate.In her dissent, Sotomayor notes, “When Penelope’s brother expresses skepticism, his mother says, ‘Not everything needs to make sense. This is about love.’ ” In their opening brief, lawyers for the families said that “teachers are told to instruct students that, at birth, people ‘guess about our gender,’ but ‘we know ourselves best.’ ”Prince and Knight Author: Daniel Haack Illustrator: Stevie Lewis “Prince and Knight” is a story about a prince whose parents want him to find a bride, but instead he falls in love with a knight. Together, they fight off a dragon. When the prince falls from a great height, his knight rescues him on horseback. When the king and queen find out of their love, they “were overwhelmed with joy. ‘We have finally found someone who is perfect for our boy!’ ” A great wedding is held, and “the prince and his shining knight would live happily ever after.”“The book Prince & Knight clearly conveys the message that same-sex marriage should be accepted by all as a cause for celebration,” said Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the majority opinion, a concerning message for Americans whose religion tells them that same-sex marriage is wrong.

“teachers are told to instruct students that, at birth, people ‘guess about our gender,’ but ‘we know ourselves best.’ ”

On Valentine’s Day, Violet makes Mira a special valentine. As Violet gathers the courage to give it to her, the valentine ends up trampled in the snow. But Mira loves it anyway and also has a special gift for Violet — a locket with a violet inside. At the end of the book, the two girls go on an adventure together.

The story, which is available as a board book, invites readers to spot items starting with each of the letters of the alphabet, including apple, baseball and clouds — as well as items more specific to a Pride parade

The books were part of an effort in the district to represent LGBTQ+ families in the English language arts curriculum.

In dissenting from Monday’s decision, Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote that the majority had gone astray by prioritizing the religious rights of a school official over those of his students, who could feel pressure to take part in religious activities.

Meyer got basic facts wrong. He concluded that EUSD removed the appearance of religion by renaming poses, giving the example that “the so-called lotus position was renamed criss-cross applesauce.” The term “criss-cross applesauce” does not appear even once in the spring 2013 yoga curriculum; the term “lotus” appears 194 times. The 2013 EUSD promotional video records a teacher instructing: “go into lotus.” Meyer believed testimony that jnanamudra was replaced by “brain highways,” a claim contradicted by defendant declarations and the video. Indeed, Meyer ignored multiple instances where defense witnesses contradicted themselves, each other, and documents they signed.

Yes. Some refused to participate in activities that felt like prayer to them. Many kids in EUSD classes still chant Om, assume jnanamudra, close their eyes to meditate while sitting in lotus, and use Sanskrit, such as Namaste (“I bow to the god within you”) and shavasana for “resting” pose.

EUSD teachers displayed posters of an eight-limbed Ashtanga tree and asana sequences taught by the “K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute”; used a textbook, Myths of the Asanas, that explains how poses represent gods and inspire virtue; taught terminology in Sanskrit (a language sacred for Hindus); taught moral character using yamas and niyamas from the Yoga Sutras; used guided meditation and visualization scripts and taught kids to color mandalas (used in visual meditation on deities).

Meyer determined that “yoga,” including “Ashtanga” yoga, “is religious.” Nevertheless, he allowed EUSD’s yoga program to continue, since he did not think children would perceive the program as advancing or inhibiting religion. The judge found the Jois Foundation partnership “troublesome,” but did not rule that it excessively entangled government with religion.

The Jois Foundation was founded “in loving dedication” to K. P. Jois, with funding from billionaire Paul Tudor Jones whose wife Sonia is an Ashtanga devotee, to spread Ashtanga, especially to kids.

Ashtanga emphasizes postures and breathing on the premise that these practices will “automatically” lead practitioners to experience the other limbs and “become one with God,” in the words of Jois, “whether they want it or not.”

he Encinitas Union School District (EUSD) accepted a $533,720 grant from the Jois Foundation to establish (to quote the signed grant) an “Ashtanga Yoga” program staffed by Jois “trained” and “certified” instructors who “partner”ed in developing a “comprehensive” yoga curriculum for Jois to export to “other school systems.”

yoga was developed by Krishna Pattabhi Jois (1915-2009) from the Yoga Sutras, a sacred text for Hindus.

This freedom to worship was indispensable in a country whose people came from the four quarters of the earth and brought with them a diversity of religious opinion.

These companion cases present the issues in the context of state action requiring that schools begin each day with readings from the Bible.

"in that it threatens their religious liberty by placing a premium on belief as against non-belief and subjects their freedom of conscience to the rule of the majority;

children's attendance at Abington Senior High School is compulsory

the children's relationships with their teachers and classmates would be adversely affected

home-room teacher, 2 who chose the text of the verses and read them herself or had students read them in rotation or by volunteers.

by the students in the various classrooms, who are asked to stand and join in repeating the prayer in unison.

broadcast into each room in the school building through an intercommunications system and are conducted under the supervision of a teacher

Any child shall be excused from such Bible reading, or attending such Bible reading, upon the written request of his parent or guardian."