Eight men, including a journalist and a prominent theater artist in Madhya Pradesh, were arrested, stripped, and photographed by local police. One of the victims also said they were beaten and abused before being stripped.
On April 6, Spain’s Senate approved landmark legislation that criminalizes the harassment of women who are undergoing abortions.
The new legislation was approved by 154 versus 105 votes, ushering in a change to Spain’s penal code. The law is expected to come into effect as soon as it gets published in its official gazette.
On April 3, the Taliban announced that they would ban the cultivation of opium poppies. A spokesman from the Taliban warned that farmers might be “jailed and their crops burned if they harvested poppy,” DW reported.
On March 24, after a successful petition campaign, Canada's Minister of Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship confirmed that atheists and other non-religious are eligible for Less Complex Claims (LCC).
The LCC is an expedited refugee application process run by the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. The process is handled by the Refugee Protection Division and allows for "short-hearing and file-review processes."
Atheist Republic’s Twitter account, the largest atheist account on the platform, has been suspended yet again. Susanna McIntyre, the CEO of Atheist Republic, reports that she was met with an “Account Suspended” notification when she tried logging in to Atheist Republic’s Twitter on Friday, April 1st, 2022.
On April 2, Mubarak Bala pleaded guilty to blasphemy charges for posting social media posts that caused a public disturbance “due to their blasphemous content.” He was sentenced to 24 years in prison for his alleged crime.
On March 30, a Bangladesh court sentenced four men to death for the brutal killing of a secular blogger in 2015. Judge Nurul Amin Biplob of the Sylhet Anti-Terrorism Tribunal gave the death penalty to four out of the five suspects in the murder of Ananta Bijoy Das.
Another victim of Pakistan's dangerous blasphemy allegations has died. A teacher at a religious seminary school in Dera Ismail Khan, a city in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, was stabbed to death.
Safoora Bibi was killed on Tuesday, March 29, by two students and one of her colleagues. They claimed that a 13-year old child dreamt of Bibi committing blasphemy and wanted Bibi dead.
Allegations of blasphemy in dominantly Muslim countries like Pakistan are a dreadful experience. Despite being unproven, many of the allegations result in injury or, worse, death.
On March 28th, the Delhi High Court asked Twitter why it had not banned accounts that posted objectionable content against a Hindu goddess. Vipin Sanghi, acting Chief Justice, and Justice Navin Chawla made the statement during Aditya Singh Deshwal’s hearing on Monday.
In July last year, Deshwal filed a complaint against Twitter to target Atheist Republic’s Twitter account for posting hurtful images of the Goddess Kali.
A South African was threatened with termination of their employment after revealing being an atheist. A post on Reddit, a social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website, revealed the realities suffered by atheists.