INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
support for Palestine and condemning what rights bodies have described as the genocide perpetrated by the Israeli regime in the Gaza
Authorities have not clarified whether the two jointly managed the social media accounts under investigation or operated
accounts on platforms such as X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram
Prosecutors deemed the content published on these platforms as incitement to terrorism and the dissemination of hate speech based on
religious or ethnic grounds.Radio France Internationale reported that the activity on these accounts drew the attention of the Interior
following the case through diplomatic channels.Esfandiari disappeared in early March 2025 without a trace
The institutional silence from the French side heightened concern in Tehran
Eventually, through diplomatic efforts, the Iranian government was able to confirm that she was in the custody of French police, although
the specifics of her case remained vague and limited.On April 12, the French weekly Le Point revealed that, after nearly a month of silence,
Foreign Ministry, publicly addressed the case for the first time on March 10
a press conference.Baghaei added that a conversation had taken place the previous day with the French embassy in Tehran, and that the
of this Iranian citizen, whose family had no news of her for some 12 or 13 days, our efforts unfortunately did not yield immediate results
In the name of a secularism presented as a guarantee of neutrality between religion and politics, many European democracies have
come from Muslim citizens
As anthropologist Saba Mahmood warned, secularism is far from impartial: rather than ensuring equality of voices in the public sphere, it
operates as a disciplining apparatus that defines which forms of suffering are deemed legible and which ethical commitments are considered
acceptable.Within this framework, pro-Palestinian activism is not read as a legitimate political stance, but rather as a potential threat to
the liberal democratic order
geopolitical priorities, the language of national security is invoked when voices denounce the Israeli regime or express solidarity with the
applied, but what it reveals about a deeper, structural mechanism of exclusion
organized systems of belonging and exclusion
national hierarchies that determine who may be part of the political community and who must remain outside its boundaries.Rather than truly
separating religion and politics, secularism reproduces and reinforces this distinction as a mechanism of control
biopolitical management: it regulates who may appear and be visible in the public sphere, determining which forms of speech deserve
protection and which must be silenced
challenge to the dominant narrative that threatens to destabilize the religious and geopolitical hierarchies underpinning the liberal
order.This apparatus of exclusion is not merely a theoretical abstraction
narrative, particularly when their ethical and political demands contradict the strategic interests of Western powers.Ultimately, what is at
inhabiting the world outside the identity logics imposed by the modern nation-state, grounded in property, cultural homogeneity, and
liberal democracies to uphold their own principles when confronted with discourses that challenge their moral and political hegemony
What is revealed is not the strength of secularism as a principle of inclusion, but its fragility as a framework for coexistence
This article first appeared/also appeared in Tehran Times
