NB: This is a fascinating account of one of the most deadly confrontations of modern times. I learned from it that Ayatollah Khomeini was less interested in religious orthodoxy than in seizing absolute power and cutting down moderate clerics to size, and used the book to assert his authority; that Rushdie’s assailant Hadi Matar, 26,… Read More Rushdie, Khomeini and Me
To respect God and to pretend to do that for votes are two different things: Vipin Kumar Tripathi Sameer Yasir One recent morning, Roop Rekha Verma, an 80-year-old peace activist and former university leader, walked through a north Indian neighborhood prone to sectarian strife and parked herself near a tea shop. From her sling bag,… Read More Leaflet by leaflet, a few aging activists fight India’s tide of bigotry
Narendra Modi deliberately combines Hindu rituals in his public persona for the political purpose of appealing to the Hindu masses. Bharat Bhushan Opposition parties have objected to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s decision to meditate at Dhyan Mandapam at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, and have approached the Election Commission of India to ban any telecast of… Read More Significance of Modi’s meditation at Kanyakumari
Millions of Evangelicals have “anointed” Trump as their modern day King Cyrus, despite his deeply UN-Christian lifestyle. Why? Because he promised them to end legal access to abortion in the US, which is all they care about as a fast-track toward Christian theocracy in the US… Six of the nine SCOTUS justices are devout, ideological Catholics,… Read More US Supreme Court is Driven by Christian Theocracy
The UN Special Rapporteur on Iran and the Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances join JVMI and survivors of the 1988 massacre in Geneva on 15 February 2024 in an appeal for justice London, 2 April 2024 – A group of 77 current and former United Nations special procedure mandate-holders and commissioners… Read More Civil Society Hearing into the 1988 Massacre in Iran / Open Letter to the UN Human Rights Council
NB: The Iranian regime is a tyrannical theocracy, which permits no criticism, no deviation from so-called divinely sanctioned modes of behaviour. To punish people with flogging and imprisonment for speaking truth about corruption is itself a criminal act. It should never be forgotten that the regime’s leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, issued a fatwa for the execution… Read More Iranian director Mohammad Rasoulof sentenced to eight years in prison and flogging
NB: The brutality of religious tyrants is reminiscent of the medieval Catholic Inquisition. This is disgrace and affront to justice and to humanity. The world is witness to an assault on young people, from Gaza to American campuses, to Iran. Nationalism divides us and makes us blind to the need for human solidarity. Wake up… Read More Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi sentenced to death for protesting
Bharat Bhushan Prime Minister Narendra Modi accused Opposition leaders of displaying a “Mughal mindset” when videos surfaced of Lalu Yadav, Tejashvi, and Rahul Gandhi bonding over cooking mutton. Not only did he accuse them of deviating from Hindu dharma in the auspicious month of Sawan, but he also alleged that the display of bonhomie was deliberate. The videos,… Read More Food, community and elections
Eran Yashiv Wikipedia entry, April 2048. Israel is a religious Jewish republic with a secular minority on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. Its regime is currently theocratic and authoritarian. Israel’s history as a state is relatively brief (100 years), though it is part of the long history of the Jewish people. Its official language… Read More Israel’s Future: A Jewish Theocracy That Resembles Iran
Rohini Hensman Introduction Myth and reality are intertwined in accounts of how Buddhism was brought to Sri Lanka. According to the Mahavamsa, a 6th century CE epic, the Buddha himself visited Lanka on three occasions, but this myth has effectively been demolished by scholars[1]. There is more evidence for the story that in the third century BCE, when Ashoka ruled… Read More Sinhala Buddhist Nationalism & Women In Sri Lanka
After the truth-shower 