The Hindu nationalist-led Indian government has stripped Muslim-majority Kashmir of its agreed-upon terms of accession, a special status granting autonomy under the Indian constitution, and sent in more than 40,000 troops to the already heavily militarized region. Kashmiris there are living under curfews without access to phones, Internet or cable TV channels while elected representatives are under house arrest.
Read MoreAfter Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s election in 2014 and reelection this May, brutal mob attacks by Hindu nationalist groups against India’s Muslim and Christian minorities have continued to steadily rise.
Read MoreThe Indian government is reportedly forming a new plan to resettle thousands of Kashmiri Hindus back to the Kashmir Valley, an army-occupied territory disputed with Pakistan. The plan would likely further inflame Hindu-Muslim tensions.
Read MoreThe practice, enforced by some conservative Sunni clerics and condemned by others, requires a divorced Muslim woman to consummate a marriage with another man before she can remarry her first husband.
Read MoreKashmiri classical music, which blends Sufi traditions from Persia with Indian classical music, is facing threat of extinction as fewer students have leisure or funds to study the art form and fewer maestros exist to teach them. Its musicians believe the genre could bring peace to the army-occupied region, following the ways of Sufi mystics who preached peace, tolerance, pluralism and universalism.
Read MoreThis month, thousands of Indian Hindu pilgrims are visiting the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir — a region of armed conflict between Kashmiri Muslim militants and Indian security officials — to pray at the Amarnath cave and shrine. Thousands of Kashmiri Muslims are setting up shops and travel businesses to accommodate them.
Read More(NEWS ANALYSIS) Rodrigo Duterte has wasted no time going after clergy, particularly when the church began opposing his human rights record. His bloody war against drugs has shocked the church, but has been met largely with approval from his supporters.
Read MoreA bill to ban triple talaq, or Islamic instant divorce, is creating controversy in India. The bill could be unconstitutional in two ways: it would criminalize only Muslim men for deserting their wives and it trumps so-called personal laws meant to provide religious freedom in civil matters like marriage.
Read MoreSaudi Arabia, China, Russia and Myanmar are the world’s worst offenders of religious freedom in 2018, according to the U.S. State Department’s International Religious Freedom Report.
Read MoreThe Rohingya, an ethnic minority persecuted by some Buddhist groups in Myanmar, are facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises of this century. We spoke to Yangon-based activist Sam Naeem about the evolution of their struggle so far.
Read MoreA recent report estimates 60,000 organ transplant surgeries happen in China every year, an industry adding $1 billion a year to the economy and cracking down on religious groups seen as a threat to the Communist Party.
Read MoreFrom the White House to London and Brooklyn, interfaith iftars — the fast-breaking meals of Ramadan — are trending this year.
Read More(COMMENTARY) When we think of North Korean armed forces, most of us envision a formidable parade of clean-cut, perfectly uniformed soldiers marching in lock-step. However, like the “Potemkin Villages” a few tourists manage to see, those tidy uniforms are nothing more than window dressing for the bankrupt regime.
Read More(ART REVIEW) The exhibition shows the interactions of humans with Hindu gods like Shiva and the mischievous side of Krishna, with his lover Radha and stealing butter and the clothes of women bathing outside.
Read More(NEWS ANALYSIS) India’s Hindu nationalist and populist Bharatiya Janata Party won reelection Thursday in a sweeping parliamentary majority. Here’s what that means for religious minorities, other marginalized groups and the organizations working for their welfare.
Read MoreThe region has long been plagued by atrocities against Kashmiri Muslims, some of whom advocate for separating from India, and ethnic Kashmiri Hindus, who support India’s military occupation and takeover. Caught in the conflict is a tiny minority of Sikhs, who say their voices are not being heard.
Read MoreSadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur, a Hindu in Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party accused of aiding a terrorist attack against Muslims, is contesting for a seat in parliament in a region crucial to the BJP’s victory.
Read More“I had all the reasons and justifications to join a terrorist group because of what has happened to me,” said Raghu Balachandran, a Christian who witnessed the murder of his father and brother in Sri Lanka’s decades-long civil war between Tamil Hindus and Sinhalese Buddhists.
Read MoreIn the wake of the Easter terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka, we spoke to Nishan De Mel, the executive director of Verité Research in Colombo, for a deeper analysis of who’s behind the attacks, what they may want, what they were targeting, and what this all means for South Asia and Sri Lanka’s religious groups and stability.
Read More(NEWS ANALYSIS) Reports claim that more than 40 Nigerian Christians were killed in the week leading up to Easter, and many more remain missing. Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari was quick to send condolences to Sri Lanka, but slower to respond to Islamist attacks on Christians in his country.
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