This Week's Dispatch is Here

This week’s Unbelief Brief discusses Pakistan being taken to task by the UN Human Rights Committee, the declining health of an imprisoned Iranian human rights activist and an overview of anti-blasphemy laws in the US.

Persecution Tracker Update: A blasphemy charge against a Kuwaiti woman.

Unbelief Brief

Pakistan has come under fire at the UN as the Human Rights Committee singled them out over violations of religious freedom, especially in regards to the country’s use of blasphemy laws. One member of the committee, Tania María Abdo Rocholl, brought particular attention to “the disturbing trend of young girls being kidnapped, coerced into converting to Islam, and married to their captors, often suffering sexual violence.” The additional use of blasphemy laws to oppress and suppress religious minorities in the country is egregious and well-documented, as pointed out by another committee member. Neither of these things is an artifact of Pakistani society as much as an artifact of where religious militancy always ultimately leads. While Pakistan is unlikely to change its ways in response to this criticism, it is good nevertheless that the government is receiving a public lambasting for it.

In Iran, “a group of 22 female inmates” at Evin Prison are pleading for immediate medical care to be granted to Narges Mohammadi, an Iranian activist who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2023 for her activism in favor of women’s rights and human rights. She has spent the better part of the last decade imprisoned by the Iranian authorities, having begun her most recent sentence in 2021. The 22 women have said that Mohammadi is suffering from “severe chest pain due to a heart condition, a lump in her breast and chronic back pain,” and that an ordinary prisoner would very likely have already been granted medical parole. However, selective treatment of prisoners according to the threat they pose to the regime is par for the course for Iranian officials.

Finally: this article from Kristina M. Lee of the University of South Dakota, exploring the history of blasphemy laws in the United States, is well worth your time. It is a stark reminder of how far we have come—and of how recently blasphemy laws have remained in practice. It is worth remembering that a handful of states still have blasphemy laws, theoretically enforceable, on the books—and that if vigilance is lost even for a moment, backward movement can happen here, too.

Persecution Tracker Updates:

A relatively seldom-seen blasphemy case in Kuwait, as a sentence of five years that appears to have been motivated by sectarian disputes is handed down to a woman. Read more here.

Until next week,

The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America

P.S. We’d love to hear from you! Share your feedback at [email protected].