The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has analysed the effects of blasphemy laws worldwide between 2014-18. 11% of the blasphemy-related incidents took place in Europe.

The International Criminal Court’s decision angered rights activists, who had lobbied it to investigate Beijing’s repressive policies against Uighurs.

It added that India’s case was unique in terms of the ‘alarming setbacks’ that have ‘taken place at an extraordinary pace’.

China Aid, a U.S.-based nonprofit that monitors religious persecution in China, reports that CCP officials recently distributed a “Teacher’s Promise to Not Believe in Any Faith” form to Longwan District School in Wenzhou in China’s Zhejiang province.

Uighurs on that list were detained for reasons including “switching off their phone repeatedly,” “generally acting suspiciously,” and being “born after the 1980s,” Human Rights Watch said.

On 7 December, the EU officially approved the creation of its newest human rights mechanism, the European Union (EU) Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime.

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to many countries cracking down on humanists’ freedom of thought and expression, with some countries blaming the non-religious for the pandemic, while the restrictions imposed by many others have left closeted humanists trapped with their hostile families.

Quebec’s attorney general argued Wednesday that the province’s state secularism law does not deny freedom of religion — rather, it frames it.

The violation of religious freedom in Pakistan is done by the government, while in India, much of it is communal violence, a top American diplomat has said, explaining why Islamabad, and not New Delhi, has been designated as a country of particular concern by the US.