Some of the most serious human rights violations today, including blasphemy prosecutions and restrictions on women’s autonomy, take place in Islamic theocracies and Islamic republics. In these systems, religious doctrine overrides secular law, treating individual rights as subordinate to religious authority.

Because these states do not fully recognize universal human rights and instead privilege religious conformity over equal treatment under the law, dissent is suppressed and inequality becomes embedded in legal systems. Political power is concentrated in religious institutions rather than the people themselves. Our vision is a world in which governance is guided by evidence, reason, and the common good, and where religion remains a matter of private conscience rather than a tool of state power.