Lagos, Nigeria by Nupo Deyon Daniel on Unsplash. Nigeria is a multi-ethnic and culturally diverse federation of 36 autonomous states and the Federal Capital Territory. The political landscape is partly dominated by the ruling All Progressives Congress party (APC), which controls the executive arm of government and holds majority seats at both the Senate and…
Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Germany. Throughout its history, capitalism has been met with harsh religious resistance and objections. Today, both Islam and Christianity continue to criticize capitalist economies and societies for injustice, exploitation, and the concept of humanity. In such criticism of economy and society, actors refer to religious ideas to reinterpret their situation, ideas…
Heraclitus, ‘the weeping philosopher’, by Johannes Moreelse (PD-US). The human inclination to search for timeless and transcendent truths, and transform them into laws that promote justice, is deeply rooted in our collective consciousness. It also lies at the heart of classical natural law theory, which has its roots in ancient Greek philosophy and Christian theology.…
From the President of Ukraine (PD-US). The right to conscientious objection to military service as a fundamental human right is recognized and guaranteed at the international level. This opposition may rest upon reasons of religious belief, philosophy, morality, ethicality, emotional or political grounds. However, at the same time, the recognition of the right to conscientious…
A sign with “Woman, Life, Freedom” (Jin, Jiyan Azadi) in Central and Northern Kurdish by Pirehelokan (CC BY-SA 4.0). As a scholar in the field of Islamic studies and material culture since the early 1990s, I have continually read and written about veiling and the hijab in Muslim cultures. In Iran, the hijab has had…
Demonstration for Uyghur rights in Berlin by Leonhard Lenz (CC0 1.0). Uyghurs are a Muslim Turkic people who have been living for a few millennia in East Turkistan or Uyghuristan, which was called Xinjiang (New Territories) in the Chinese language following Chinese invasion. The Uyghur nation has members of ethnic Uyghurs, Kazakhs, Kyrgyzs, Tajiks, and…
Indian Creek in Bears Ears National Monument by US Bureau of Land Management. This article is part of our “200 Years of Johnson v. M’Intosh: Law, Religion, and Native American Lands” series. If you’d like to check out other articles in this series, click here. Mother Earth is the wellspring of indigenous culture, religion, and economic life.It forms…
The Blessings of Liberty: Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the Western Legal TraditionJohn Witte, Jr. The following is excerpted from John Witte, Jr.’s The Blessings of Liberty: Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the Western Legal Tradition, out now from Cambridge University Press. Read Nicholas Wolterstorff’s review of the book here. For the past…
The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost VisionErika Bachiochi This excerpt is from the first chapter of The Rights of Women: Reclaiming a Lost Vision and was published by the University of Notre Dame Press (2021). In 1785, John Adams, his wife, Abigail, and their two eldest children departed from his diplomatic post in Paris…
Picture by Danny D. on Unsplash. The Chinese government is waging an assault on religion. Millions of Christians, Muslims, and Buddhists are being subjected to arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and the destruction of religious buildings, books and artifacts. Can the international community do anything to stop these human rights violations and hold the perpetrators…