As Ex-Muslim Awareness Month ends, a look at dissent, power, and the ideas states still fear.

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Your Final Update of 2025

As Ex-Muslim Awareness Month comes to a close, this week’s Dissent Dispatch examines a recurring theme across very different political contexts: what forms of dissent are tolerated, and which remain unforgivable. From Iran’s unexpectedly restrained response to economic protests, to Hindu nationalist harassment of Christians in India, to renewed debates in the UK over “anti-Muslim hatred” and the limits of religious criticism, we look at how power reacts when belief systems themselves are questioned and why that line continues to matter.

Unbelief Brief

Protests [[link removed]] have erupted in Iran as inflation and currency devaluation have soared. And, interestingly, the regime is trying something other than locking up and/or executing anyone who criticizes the government: they are pledging to listen [[link removed]] and “address” the protestors’ demands for relief on cost of living. One can read this seeming “conciliatory” attitude in two ways.

First, the regime undoubtedly feels the pressure of public discontent that has caused such widespread instability in the past few years, ignited by the police murder of Mahsa Amini and the ensuing Woman, Life, Freedom protests. President Masoud Pezeshkian and his government ministers are well aware they are on thin ice. But this hasn’t stopped them from brutally cracking down on dissidents even in the recent past [[link removed]]. Even the concessions [[link removed]] the regime has made on enforcement of the mandatory hijab, particularly in Tehran, have been tempered by measures such as increased digital surveillance [[link removed]].

More than the regime being careful with discontented citizens, the nature of the protests can probably explain the muted response. Complaints about the cost of living are non-ideological. They do not threaten the philosophical foundations of the Islamic Republic, nor do they discriminate between the loyal and the disloyal. On the other hand, open declarations of apostasy, or of Islam’s untruth, threaten to break the regime’s spell on its citizens. Economic turbulence, if allowed to get sufficiently bad, could do that too; but the regime is surely happier trying to address the cost of living if it means there is less conversation about human rights.

Over in India, Hindu nationalists seem to have taken a short break from harassing the country’s Muslim minority this holiday season. Reports indicate that vigilante groups have engaged in targeted attacks on Christmas celebrations. The Independent reports [[link removed]] on a particular incident of note:

A video from Jabalpur in the central state of Madhya Pradesh showed Anju Bhargava, identified as a local leader of prime minister Narendra Modi’s BJP party, harassing and assaulting a visually impaired Christian woman attending a Christmas programme.

Bhargava denied wrongdoing, insisting it was all a huge misunderstanding and that she was actually trying to help the woman she was assaulting.

Another video, reported by The Independent, showed Hindu men harassing roadside vendors over the sale of “Christian items” such as Santa hats—an ironic reversal, given that the same symbol is often denounced by fundamentalist American Christians as evidence of Christmas’s secularization.

Lastly: as the UK government appears poised to unveil its guidance on “anti-Muslim hatred,” ditching its old plans for an “Islamophobia” definition, another complaint has been registered, this time in Al Jazeera. James Renton, a professor in the UK, writes [[link removed]] that by abandoning the term “Islamophobia,” the government ignores that the true root of anti-Muslim hostility is hostility toward Islam. Implicit in this assumption is that any respectable person must respect Islam in order to respect Muslims, a position we categorically and emphatically reject [[link removed]].

Renton further draws comparisons with anti-Semitism, asking the reader to imagine if a carveout existed in that definition for insulting Judaism. One need not “imagine” this at all: we are perfectly happy to insult Judaism, a nonsensical religion built on delusions which gave rise [[link removed]] to two far bigger [[link removed]] nonsensical and delusional religions. The violent rage and spiteful vindictiveness of the God of the Hebrew Bible has been belabored to death by atheists since the modern movement began. One can say all of this while still standing against blanket hatred of Jews as individuals or as a collective.

To Renton’s implication that we have an obligation to respect Islam as a religion and belief system, our response is very simple: no, we do not. Anti-Muslim bigotry is unacceptable and must be opposed, but we owe no belief system any deference.

From the Community

As Ex-Muslim Awareness Month comes to a close, we want to leave you with one final invitation.

If you haven’t yet explored [[link removed]], take a moment to do so. It is the first global map of Ex-Muslim stories — shared anonymously by people who have left Islam and created by Ex-Muslims themselves, including Haram Doodles [[link removed]]. Together, these voices form a rare public record of a community that is often forced to remain unseen.

Awareness months end. These stories shouldn’t disappear with them. Visit [[link removed]].

If you found this newsletter valuable, please consider sharing it with a friend—or supporting our work with a donation [[link removed]].

Until next week,

The Team at Ex-Muslims of North America

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