Iran

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Here is a solid news peg for the severely under-covered story of Christian persecution

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Here is a solid news peg for the severely under-covered story of Christian persecution

With all-important developments in the Middle East and Ukraine, it seems off-kilter to state that another major international story is being severely neglected, and has long been so. But such is The Guy’s opinion about mainstream media neglect of the waves of evidence for ongoing global persecution of Christians, on which we now have a Nov. 1 news peg.

A previous GetReligion Memo addressed the plight of Armenian Christians within Islamic Azerbaijan.  That’s just one of many tragedies detailed in the annual “Persecutors of the Year” report for 2023, just issued by International Christian Concern (ICC).

Yes, followers of other world religions also face inexcusable abuse in several nations. The parallel 2023 report produced last May by the federal government’s independent U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), which is also important to check out, emphasizes the plight of both Christians and other minorities in Iran but “sounds the alarm regarding the deterioration of religious freedom conditions in a range of other countries.” Click here for that report (.pdf).

But the scale is distinctive if, as ICC reports, “there are an estimated 200 to 300 million Christians who suffer persecution worldwide.” There’s corroboration of such a vast problem in the latest edition of the “World Christian Encyclopedia.”

The overall global scenario warrants coverage, but many specific situations are newsworthy.

In ICC’s estimation, the world’s five worst individual persecutors today are Yogi Adityanath, the Hindu chief minister of India’s most populous state; Isaias Afwerki, Eritrea’s dictator; the better-known President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and atheistic Communist dictators Xi Jinping of China and Kim Jong Un of North Korea.

Here’s the ICC list of the most bloodthirsty non-governmental organizations: Allied Democratic Forces (Islamic State affiliate operating in Congo and Uganda), Al-Shabab (al-Qaida affiliate in Somalia), ethnic Fulani jihadists in Nigeria, the five terrorist groups jointly disrupting Africa’s Sahel region, the Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s army) and the famous Taliban who again rule Afghanistan.

The ICC material from 50 researchers, half at Washington headquarters and half working overseas, shows that action against Christians is frequently linked with oppression of ethnic minorities and of political dissenters.


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When writing about Iran, women and hijab, stress the Islamic roots of it all.

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When writing about Iran, women and hijab, stress the Islamic roots of it all.

The female protestors in Iran have received a lot of positive press recently. Not only did they win Time magazine’s 2022 Person of the Year reader poll, they were also named the magazine’s 2022 Heroes of the Year.

Their bravery, even in the face of death — a number of them are being tortured and killed — has gained the attention of the world.

Recenty, the New York Times did a piece on how so many women are ditching their head coverings, the police aren’t bothering to arrest them. The issue here at GetReligion, of course, is whether journalists are coving the role that debates about specific Islamic traditions and laws are playing in all of this.

An engineer strode onstage at an event in Tehran, wearing tight pants and a stylish shirt, and clutching a microphone in one hand. Her long brown hair, tied in a ponytail, swung freely behind her, uncovered, in open defiance of Iran’s strict hijab law.

“I am Zeinab Kazempour,” she told the convention of Iran’s professional association of engineers. She condemned the group for supporting the hijab rules, and then she marched offstage, removing a scarf from around her neck and tossing it to the floor under a giant image of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The packed auditorium erupted in cheers, claps and whistles. A video of Ms. Kazempour went viral on social media and local news sites, making her the latest champion for many Iranians in a growing, open challenge to the hijab law.

Something has cracked wide open in the consciousness of Persian women.

Recently I’ve been fascinated by the refusal by Iranian women to wear head coverings. I’ve checked out Iranian activist Masih Alinejad’s “The Wind in My Hair” and Maryam Rostampour and Marziyeh Amirizadeh’s “Captive in Iran,” the latter about these two Christian women’s 259-day stay in Evin, Iran’s most notorious prison, to get a feel for what women experience in this sad and terrifying country.

Both give a snapshot of what it’s like to live in a real-life “Handmaid’s Tale” society.


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Of course the fall of Roe was 2022's top religion-beat story (including those church attacks)

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Of course the fall of Roe was 2022's top religion-beat story (including those church attacks)

In the years before Roe v. Wade, one of America's largest Christian flocks struggled to find a way to condemn abortion, while also opposing bans on abortion.

A 1971 resolution said: "Some advocate that there be no abortion legislation, thus making the decision a purely private matter between a woman and her doctor" while others "advocate no legal abortion," permitting it "only if the life of the mother is threatened." Thus, it backed legislation allowing "abortion under such conditions as rape, incest, clear evidence of severe fetal deformity, and carefully ascertained evidence of the likelihood of damage to the emotional, mental, and physical health of the mother."

After the 1973 Roe decision, the same body stressed the "limited role of government" in abortion questions, while supporting a "full range of medical services and personal counseling" for expectant mothers.

That was the Southern Baptist Convention -- before its conservative wing gained control, creating a powerful cultural force against abortion rights.

Churches were always active in abortion debates, with some embracing centuries of doctrine on the sanctity of human life, while overs became strategic abortion-rights supporters. Thus, journalists in the Religion News Association named the Supreme Court decision to overturn Roe v. Wade as the year's top American religion-news story. Now churches -- left and right face -- face the challenge of proclaiming certainties while many states seek compromise.

Stressing politics, the RNA stated: "The Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent and says there is no constitutional right to abortion, sparking battles in courts and state legislatures and driving voters to the November polls in high numbers. More than a dozen states enact abortion bans, while voters reject constitutional abortion restrictions in conservative Kansas and Kentucky and put abortion rights in three other states' constitutions."

This poll avoided other religion-news elements of this story, such as acts of violence against churches -- especially Catholic parishes -- and crisis pregnancy centers, ranging from vandalism to arson, from the interruption of sacred rites to the destruction of sacred art. Protestors marched at the homes of SCOTUS justices and police arrested an armed man who threatened to invade the house of Justice Brett Kavanaugh.

This year, the RNA added an international list, selecting Russia's war against Ukraine as the top story, in part because of bitter tensions between the Russian Orthodox Church and the new Orthodox Church of Ukraine, backed by the United States and the Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey.


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Final 2022 podcast: What parts of the Roe v. Wade story deserved additional coverage?

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Final 2022 podcast: What parts of the Roe v. Wade story deserved additional coverage?

Everyone had to know that the fall of Roe v. Wade would be the top pick in the Religion News Association’s annual poll to determine the Top 10 religion-beat stories of 2022. That would have been the case, even if the RNA hadn’t created two lists this year, one for U.S. stories and one for international stories.

Why? I’ve been following this poll closely since the late 1970s and once interviewed the legendary George Cornell of the Associated Press about his observations on mainstream religion-news coverage trends during his decades on the beat.

Let’s briefly review some of the factors that shape this list year after year, since this topic was discussed during the final 2022 “Crossroads” podcast (CLICK HERE to tune that in). This episode was recorded while we wrestled with rolling power blackouts here in the frigid hills of East Tennessee. See if you can guess where we had to do a patch and start again!

First of all, the RNA top story will almost always be a hot political event or trend — with a religion angle. Politics, after all, is REAL news. Think White Evangelicals and Bad Man Orange. Second, it helps if stories feature clashes between religion and sex, usually in one of the progressive Mainline Protestant churches or, ideally, Roman Catholicism. Think Joe Biden, Catholic bishops and just about anything (especially if Pope Francis is involved). After that, you have slots for wars, natural disasters and newsy papal tours.

The fall of Roe v. Wade had it all, putting a core Sexual Revolution doctrine at risk, to one degree or another, depending on the blue, red or purple state involved.

I will not run through the contents of the whole RNA list. However, it’s interesting to note the wordings in some poll items, paying attention to what is included and what is NOT included therein. For example, here is No. 1 in the U.S. list:

The Supreme Court overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent and says there is no constitutional right to abortion, sparking battles in courts and state legislatures and driving voters to the November polls in high numbers. More than a dozen states enact abortion bans, while voters reject constitutional abortion restrictions in conservative Kansas and Kentucky and put abortion rights in three other states’ constitutions.

What is missing in that complex item?


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Escaping that 'comfort zone': Press keeps missing obvious religion news at '22 World Cup

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Escaping that 'comfort zone': Press keeps missing obvious religion news at '22 World Cup

The World Cup in Qatar continues to roll along into the semifinals. So far, the premier soccer tournament — and arguably the planet’s biggest sporting event — has showcased skill, drama and even some upsets. 

What the tournament has also generated are plenty of different kinds of storylines for news reporters and sports writers to focus on. As is the case with sporting events in general there are lots of storylines connected to religion that have gone unnoticed. 

It should come as no surprise that sports writers, and very often their editors back in the newsroom, don’t “get” religion. Go-to websites such as Fox Sports and ESPN, for instance, have failed to cover obvious stories in the past. They’ve also failed to do it in regards to the 2022 World Cup. For starters, think location, location and location. Why? Click here.

There are a few faith storylines — on and off the field — that did get coverage. Some of that coverage was great; some not so great.  

An example of a very good piece came via The New York Times. The newspaper found a way to discuss Qatar’s use of migrant workers to build stadiums and other infrastructure projects related to the World Cup in a new way.

The feature, which ran on a Sunday during Advent, looked at Qatar’s only Catholic church, located on the outskirts of the capital city Doha — in an area in which the government sanctions eight houses of worship, from Anglican to Eastern Orthodox. This feature, written by John Branch, is one of the rare times when a sports writer left his or her “comfort zone” and ventured outside the bubble of stadiums and press conferences to cover a story. 

Here’s the key section, showing why this story matters: 

Qatar is a nation deeply rooted in Islam. Calls to prayer can be heard five times a day throughout Doha. World Cup stadiums have prayer rooms for fans, and some staff at the games will stop what they’re doing to kneel in prayer.


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Doctrine and fashion: As Iran protests persist, what women's clothing does Islam require?

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Doctrine and fashion: As Iran protests persist, what women's clothing does Islam require?

THE QUESTION:

As Iran protests persist, what women’s clothing does Islam require?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

The facts are these. On September 13, Iran’s morality police arrested 22-year-old Mahsa Amini for violating the legally required Muslim dress code for women. She was wearing the mandatory head scarf (hijab), but apparently it did not correctly conceal all of her hair. Three days later, Amini died while still in police custody. The government blames a heart attack, but suspicions that she was abused run rampant.

In the spontaneous uproar that resulted, refusal to wear the hijab became a symbol of resisting oppression as protests across the nation targeted not only restrictions for women but expressed over-all rejection of the harsh theocratic regime that has ruled revolutionary Iran the past 43 years. At this writing, at least 200 Iranians have reportedly been killed and 1,500 demonstrators arrested.

Azadeh Moaveni of New York University wrote in The New York Times that resentment boiled over in part because women in Tehran’s wealthy and politically-connected elite flagrantly ignore the Muslim dress laws without arrest.

There’s always been vigorous discussion of the complexities about exactly what attire is properly modest and thus faithful to Islam.

Responding to events in Iran, Deina Abdelkader at the University of Massachusetts Lowell contends that clothing rules “have nothing to do with Islamic tenets” while Muslim countries have imposed — or forbidden — forms of women’s attire in order to proclaim their ideology, whether secular or scrupulously religious.

Islam’s fundamental concern here is not unique, since religions normally advocate modesty and propriety. In particular, Jewish tradition associates attire as part of a general admonition in the Torah (Deuteronomy 23:15, JPS translation): “Let your camp be holy; let Him [God] not find anything unseemly among you and turn away from you.”


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In Islamic tradition, what is a fatwa? Why the demands to kill novelist Salman Rushdie?

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In Islamic tradition, what is a fatwa? Why the demands to kill novelist Salman Rushdie?

THE QUESTION:

In Islam, what is a fatwa? Why the demand to kill novelist Salman Rushdie?

THE RELIGION GUY’S ANSWER:

In 1989, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iran’s theocratic ruler, ordered the assassination “without delay” of novelist Salman Rushdie because of his novel “The Satanic Verses.” Remarkably, this official fatwa imposed the duty of freelance killing in the name of God upon masses of Muslim believers in all nations, and also demanded death for the editors and publishers involved with the book.

Three decades later, a Lebanese-American stands accused of attempting to murder Rushdie by repeated stabbings onstage at New York’s Chautauqua Institution. The author suffered severe injuries but survived. Though the Muslim Council of Britain condemned the attack, the Iranian regime’s Kayhan newspaper dispatched “a thousand bravos” to “the brave and dutiful” assailant while militants in other Muslim lands celebrated. We’ll see what prosecutors and defense attorneys finally say about links between Iran’s fatwa of death and the sensational bloodshed.

Rushdie’s complex fantasy had dream sequences in which depraved enemies of Islam — not the author himself — complain about moral absolutism and treatment of women and demean the Prophet Muhammad’s wives and closest Companions. They also challenge the divine inspiration of the Quran. A Wall Street Journal op-ed correctly noted that the far greater threat to the Quran is the revisionist theorizing on its origins by the late John Wansbrough at the University of London.

The Rushdie novel resulted in book-banning and riots in the Muslim world, and the famous fatwa sent Rushdie into hiding for years. In 1998, Iran’s president declared the case “finished” during diplomatic efforts, but the regime did not actually abolish the fatwa. It was reaffirmed by Khomeini’s successor as Supreme Leader in 2017, and re-published on a government Web site five days before the Chautauqua stabbing. During the past decade, Iranian groups have pledged to pay a $3.9 million bounty to anyone who slays Rushdie.


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At last, it's time for reporters to look abroad, with decline of Islam in Iran a brewing story

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Enough with U.S. politics and punditry. How about more news-media reportage on major developments abroad?

One top hot spot in the coming Joe Biden era is Iran, with the regime's intensified rivalry with Arab neighbors led by Saudi Arabia, ongoing hatred toward a supposedly satanic United States and ambitious pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Journalists give far less notice to Iran's religious situation, perhaps because they tend to emphasize Islam's dominant Sunni branch more than the minority Shi'ism that became Persia's official faith in 1501, and because we assume rigid theocracy is frozen in place and that's that.

But what if the religo-political rule so famously imposed in 1979 upon this large and pivotal land has lost so much public respect that we see "the near collapse of official Iranian Islam"? That startling quote comes from Baylor University historian Philip Jenkins in a column for The Christian Century. If true, that's a huge story just waiting for thorough examination through interviews with stateside experts or, for media so equipped, on-the-ground coverage.

The new edition of the authoritative World Christian Encyclopedia says its sources report that starting around 2002, Iran's Islamic rule has inspired the quiet spread of small underground Christian fellowships with thousands involved -- some say a million -- despite the fact that those forsaking Islam face prison, even death. This has been discussed in niche Christian circles online, but that’s about it.

Jenkins is iffy on the extent of Christian growth, since hard evidence is lacking, but is confident about Islam's collapse due to an important opinion survey in Iran last summer by a Dutch organization.

What is happening? Only 78% of the Iranians sampled believe in God in any sense, and just 32% consider themselves to be Shi'a Muslims any longer. A mere one-fourth expect the coming Imam Mahdi (messiah), a fundamental tenet of Shi'ism.

"The vast majority of mosques are all but abandoned, even during great celebrations" on the Islamic calendar, Jenkins reports.

His sardonic comment: "Forty years of ruthless theocracy will do that to a country."


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First Amendment and God's power: Press enters debate on believers gathering for worship

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I realize that I have said this many times at GetReligion through the years, but the coronavirus crisis makes this old Baylor University church-state seminar talking point relevant once again.

The First Amendment offers an amazing amount of protection, in terms of the freedom of religious belief and practice. If you want to understand the limits, remember these three factors that allow state officials to investigate whether religious practices are protected — profit, fraud and clear threat to life and health.

That third one is clearly in the news right now. Come to think of it, some old televangelists are yanking No. 2 into play, as well. Can you say “Jim Bakker”?

This brings me to key themes in a few recent stories linked to the impact of coronavirus concerns on religious worship and practice. How widespread are these concerns? This New York Times piece looked at the global picture: “In a Pandemic, Religion Can Be a Balm and a Risk.”

Believers worldwide are running afoul of public health authorities’ warnings that communal gatherings, the keystone of so much religious practice, must be limited to combat the virus’ spread. In some cases, religious fervor has led people toward cures that have no grounding in science; in others, it has drawn them to sacred places or rites that could increase the risk of infection.

In Myanmar, a prominent Buddhist monk announced that a dose of one lime and three palm seeds — no more, no less — would confer immunity. In Iran, a few pilgrims were filmed licking Shiite Muslim shrines to ward off infection. And in Texas, the preacher Kenneth Copeland braided televangelism with telemedicine, broadcasting himself, one trembling hand outstretched, as he claimed he could cure believers through their screens.

That’s the context for an important Associated Press report that ran the other day with this headline: “Coronavirus gathering bans raise religious freedom questions.” Here is the key summary paragraph:


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