On this International Women's Day, here are five women of faith to remember who were pillars for building their societies: Sojourner Truth, Jetsunma Tenzin Palmo, Prathia Laura Ann Hall, Mother Teresa of Calcutta and Zilda Arns.
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The State Committee for Work with Religious Organizations will take over naming imams in all mosques from the Caucasian Muslim Board if amendments to the religion law awaiting their second reading in Parliament are approved. The amendments would also give the committee the leading role in reappointing all imams every five years.
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Enes Kanter Freedom’s efforts go far beyond the basketball court. He is one of the most outspoken basketball players and athletes at the professional level when it comes to activism, standing up for religious freedom and the oppressed. He’s been one of the few pro athletes willing to criticize China for its treatment of religious minorities.
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(OPINION) Recent years have seen several incidents in India that should have raised the alarm and should have been monitored and analyzed along the lines of the serious risk of genocide and other atrocities. These incidents include the government’s systematic discrimination against the Muslim minority in India.
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Syed Ali Sarvat Jafri lives near Ayodhya, the Indian city that witnessed violent intercommunal rioting after Hindu nationalists tore down a 16th century mosque. Jafri aims to spark conversations about history, memory and heritage-preservation through his art, which draws on his ancestral legacy of blending Hinduism and Sufism in poetry.
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(OPINION) The 2022 Beijing Games are surrounded by controversy. The Chinese government is accused of genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities. Evidence shows the Uyghur people are held in concentration camps, forcibly sterilized and subjected to forced labor, torture, rape and sexual violence.
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(OPINION) A recent Pew survey found that 40% of countries and territories worldwide had blasphemy laws in 2019. But a few caveats bring a greater understanding of how blasphemy laws and hate speech laws are impacting believers and nonbelievers today.
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Last year saw the highest number of physical attacks against Indian Christians on record, with 486 attacks, a rise of 80% from 2020, according to United Christian Forum, which collects the data from a phone helpline. Meanwhile, Open Doors USA recently ranked India as the 10th most dangerous country for Christians.
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Ukrainian Christians have experienced death, displacement and loss in conflicts with Russia that date back to 2014. That’s when Russia seized Crimea. And now, Russia has amassed some 127,000 troops along its western border with Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian defense ministry.
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(OPINION) Thich Nhat Hanh, the monk who popularized mindfulness in the West, died in the Tu Hieu Temple in Hue, Vietnam, on Jan. 21, 2022. He was 95. In the 1960s, Hanh played an active role promoting peace during the years of war in Vietnam. In his mid-20s, he became active in efforts to revitalize Vietnamese Buddhism for peace efforts.
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Of the 7.6 billion people on Earth, 2.4 billion identify as Christian, 1.9 billion as Muslim, 1.2 billion as Hindu and more than 500 million as Buddhist. Those are just the four largest religions. In other words, 310 million in the U.S. do not necessarily constitute the epicenter for all religion in the world. If anything, religion in America is a unique outlier.
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“Autobiography of a Yogi,” published in 1946, popularized Eastern religious concepts like “cosmic consciousness” and practices like yoga and meditation in the West. Brother Jayananada, who became a monk after reading the book over 40 years ago, spoke with ReligionUnplugged.com about its 75th anniversary and its lasting impact.
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(OPINION) Recent years have seen a crackdown on human rights and democracy in Hong Kong. Within a few months, three pro-democracy outlets disappeared from Hong Kong. Nonetheless, Hong Kong authorities have rejected claims of a crackdown and denied targeting the media.
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Hindu extremists groups are disrupting Muslim prayers in an Indian city and threatening Hindus and Sikhs who help their Muslim neighbors find worship space.
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As the Kazakh government declares a state of emergency and bans mass meetings in some areas, legal changes increase obstacles for holding religious meetings away from state-registered places of worship. Human rights defenders have documented the country’s already severe restrictions on the rights of peaceful assembly.
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(OPINION) Since a military takeover in February 2021 and a severe COVID-19 outbreak, Myanmar has faced an unprecedented crisis, with 14 out of 15 regions within the critical threshold for acute malnutrition. A recent UN report suggests that 14.4 million people will need aid in some form.
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(OPINION) As South Africa’s first Black Anglican archbishop and Nobel prize winning human rights advocate, the Rev. Desmond Tutu tapped into India’s freedom struggle and learned organizing strategies from Mahatma Gandhi. Today, Indian church leaders are leaning from Tutu’s example to heal divisions of caste, class and religion.
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(OPINION) For journalists who braved the chaos, the Jan. 6 riot on Capitol Hill offered a buffet of the bizarre — a throng of Proud Boys, QAnon prophets, former U.S. military personnel and radicalized Donald Trump supporters that crashed through security lines and, thus, into history.
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The Indian government blocked foreign donations to Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity over the Christmas holiday, cutting off a major source of funding for the Roman Catholic organization that provides housing, food and medical care for thousands of poor, disabled and ill Indians.
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(ANALYSIS) As 2021 comes to a close, everyone is looking toward 2022. The news cycle over the last two years has been dominated by COVID-19, and that doesn’t seem to be subsiding given the rash of recent omicron infections. The Catholic world, meanwhile, had in 2021 one of its busiest years. Expect 2022 to be just as busy.
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