Two Chinese nationals allegedly acting as agents for the Chinese government were apprehended in the United States following an undercover operation and were charged with trying to damage and topple an anti-communist Chinese religious group.
More than a year after a landmark case in Nigeria that saw atheist Mubarak Bala imprisoned for expressing his views on religion, a US congressman took up his case and joined in the calls to free Bala.
An Arizona representative, who is also a minister, is under investigation by the state’s House of Representatives for staging a prank involving the Bible.
State Representative Stephanie Stahl Hamilton, a Democrat and a Presbyterian Minister, is facing an ethics complaint for her playful prank, where camera footage saw her hiding Bibles from her fellow representatives in unusual places, like under the table or inside a refrigerator.
An Iraqi Islamic leader claimed that the Israeli Mossad used a prostitute in the 7th century to kill the first Shia Imam, adding that the Israeli-Jewish intelligence agencies use money and women to achieve their goals.
Several Iraqi Twitter accounts posted a video of Qais Al-Khazali making these claims while speaking in public. Al-Khazali is the leader of the Asaib Ahl Al-Haqq, a radical Iraqi Shia political party and paramilitary group backed by Iran.
A lawsuit was filed against the State Department of the US government for discriminating against a guard when he was allegedly forced to shave his beard to keep his job at the agency.
The case was filed on May 3rd by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) on behalf of security guard Devin Brooks against the US State Department and State Secretary Anthony Blinken. The suit stated that the agency “denied permission to maintain a beard longer than ½ inch,” as required by Brook’s Islamic faith.
A sweeping new report by the UK government’s faith adviser has been published, making it the most comprehensive review of the relationship between the British government and the country’s many religious organizations in more than a generation.
Controversial Kenyan pastor and cult leader Paul Makenzie is under investigation again, this time after authorities found hundreds of dead bodies in shallow graves dug at Shakahola Forest, near the coastal city of Malindi, on April 23rd.
A week after far-right Danish-Swedish activist Rasmus Paludan burned the Quran in Sweden, which sparked outrage across the Muslim world, Swedish authorities have reportedly denied giving a Muslim man permission to burn the Torah in front of the Israeli embassy as a protest.
American Atheists, an organization promoting religious equality and a member of Humanist International, warned about the likely strategy of white Christian nationalists in 2023 after the midterm elections.
Their warning is based on the organization’s 2022 State of the Secular States report, which comprehensively and thoroughly analyzes secularism and religious equality in all of America’s states and territories, including Puerto Rico and Washington, DC.