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The Trump administration is set to release Thursday updated guidance on prayer in public schools that officials are touting as President Donald Trump’s commitment to religious freedom.

Trump has made religious freedom a signature issue in his domestic and foreign policy, declaring a Religious Freedom Day and directing the State Department to host an annual Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom, among other actions.   

The updated U.S. Education Department’s guidance on prayer in public elementary and secondary schools is drawing cheers from Trump’s most vocal supporters among Evangelical Christians.

What does the law say about school prayer?

While school-sponsored prayer in U.S. public schools is prohibited, individual and group prayers on school grounds are not. American schools once used to start their day with a prayer or a reading from the Bible. That tradition came to a halt in 1962 when the Supreme Court ruled that school-sponsored prayers violated the Constitution’s  prohibition on establishing an official religion. Subsequent court rulings have recognized prayer in school as constitutionally protected.  

What does the U.S. Education Department guidance say?

The guidance, last updated in 2003, requires local educational agencies to certify on an annual basis that they have no policy that prevents constitutionally protected prayer in elementary and secondary public schools. The education department can cut off funding to schools that don’t comply with the policy. The department provides tens of billions of dollars to public elementary and secondary schools. More broadly, the guidance keeps school districts apprised of the law and the extent to which school prayer is constitutionally and legally protected.

What is allowed?

Students are free to pray alone or in groups while not in class or engaged in other school activities. They can read the Bible or other scriptures, such as the Koran. They may be excused from class to attend a prayer. Teachers may similarly take part in religious activities as long as they make clear they’re not doing so “in their official capacities,” according to the guidance.

What is not allowed?

While religion can be taught in public schools, schools are not allowed to sponsor religious activities such as prayers. Teachers, administrators and school employees are forbidden from “encouraging or discouraging prayer and from actively participating in religious activities with students,” according to the guidance.  For example, teachers may not lead their classes in prayer. Nor can school administrators include prayer in school-sponsored events.

What is being updated?

The Education Department hasn’t disclosed details of the updated guidance. However, White House Domestic Policy Council Director Joe Grogan told reporters Thursday morning the guidance “will remind school districts of the rights of students, parents and teachers, and will empower students in others to confidently know and exercise their rights.”

In addition to the education department updating its school prayer guidance, nine federal agencies are releasing proposed rules that will remove “discriminatory regulatory burdens” that the Obama administration placed on religious organizations that receive federal funding, Grogan said.

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A federal judge agreed Wednesday to block the Trump administration from enforcing an executive order allowing state and local government officials to reject refugees from resettling in their jurisdictions.
    
U.S. District Judge Peter Messitte in Maryland issued a preliminary injunction requested by three national refugee resettlement agencies that sued to challenge the executive order.
    
In his 31-page ruling, Messitte said the agencies are likely to succeed in showing that the executive order is unlawful because it gives state and local governments veto power over the resettlement of refugees.
    
President Donald Trump’s administration announced in November that resettlement agencies must get written consent from state and local officials in any jurisdiction where they want to help resettle refugees beyond June 2020.
    
Agency leaders say the order effectively gives governors and county leaders a veto in the resettlement process. The agencies also argue the order illegally conflicts with the 1980 Refugee Act.
    
Messitte concluded Trump’s order doesn’t appear to serve the “overall public interest.”
    
“Refugee resettlement activity should go forward as it developed for the almost 40 years before the (executive order) was announced,’”he wrote.
   
 Church World Service, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service and HIAS, a Jewish nonprofit, filed the lawsuit in Greenbelt, Maryland, on Nov. 21. They are three of the nine national organizations agencies that have agreements with the federal government to provide housing and other services for refugees.
    
Texas, which took in more refugees than any other state during the 2018 fiscal year, became the first state known to reject the resettlement of new refugees. Gov. Greg Abbott said in a letter released Jan. 10 that Texas “has been left by Congress to deal with disproportionate migration issues resulting from a broken federal immigration system.”
    
The head of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, said the ruling for now puts on hold a policy that was causing “irreparable harm to refugee families and resettlement agency’s already. “ She added that it essentially re-opens the door for now to refugees being resettled in Texas.
    
“It’s a significant day in which the rule of law won,” O’Mara Vignarajah said.
    
At least 41 states have publicly agreed to accept refugees, but a governor’s decision doesn’t preclude local officials from refusing to give their consent. For instance, the Democratic mayor of Springfield, Massachusetts, has refused to give written consent for refugees to be resettled in the city.
    
Trump’s order says the agencies were not working closely enough with local officials on resettling refugees and his administration acted to respect communities that believe they do not have the jobs or other resources to be able to take in refugees. Refugees have the right to move anywhere in the U.S. after their initial resettlement, but at their own expense.
    
Before Trump signed the executive order, state and local officials were given a voice but not a veto in deciding where refugees would be resettled, resettlement agency lawyers said.
    
During a Jan. 8 hearing, the judge said the president’s order essentially changed a federal law governing the resettlement of refugees.
    
Justice Department attorney Bradley Humphreys said the Refugee Act gives the president “ample authority” to make such a change.
    
“Why change it now?” Messitte asked. “Is it purely a political thing?”
    
Humphreys said the executive order is designed to enhance the involvement of state and local officials in the process of resettling refugees. But he insisted it doesn’t give them a veto over resettlement decisions.
    
The Trump administration has capped the number of refugee admissions at 18,000 for the current fiscal year. About 30,000 refugees were resettled in the U.S. during the past fiscal year; between 150,000 and 200,000 remain in the pipeline for possible U.S. resettlement while they live abroad, according to Linda Evarts, one of the plaintiffs’ attorneys.

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Albania said Wednesday it has ordered the expulsion of two Iranian diplomats and declared them “persona non grata.”

Acting Foreign Minister Gent Cakaj announced the decision in a Facebook post, writing that diplomats Mohammad Ali Arz Peimanemati and Seyed Ahmad Hosseini Alast have conducted “activities in breach of their [diplomatic] status and the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.”

“The two representatives of the Islamic Republic have been asked to leave the territory of the Republic of Albania immediately,” Cakaj wrote, without offering further details.  

Confidential sources within the Albanian government told VOA the two diplomats are being expelled for activity endangering Albania’s national security. 

They said that cultural attache Seyed Ahmed Hosseini Alast had previously held high positions with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard and that Mohamed Peimanemati had been a member of the operational unit of Iran’s Intelligence Agency, MOIS. The source charged that he was responsible for terrorist acts in European Union countries.

The same sources told VOA that the two had been associates of Quds Force commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike early this month.

Rising tensions

Adrian Shtuni, a foreign policy and security expert in Washington, told VOA the expulsion marks a new low in the already strained diplomatic relationship between Albania and Iran.

“While the specific nature of the actions undertaken by the expelled Iranian diplomats are yet unclear, the justification used by the Albanian authorities, namely ‘activities incompatible with their diplomatic status,’ is a standard euphemism for espionage,” he said.

It is the second time in 13 months that Albania has declared Iranian diplomats “persona non grata.”

In December 2018, Tirana expelled Iran’s ambassador and another diplomat whom the country accused of “damaging its national security.” Following talks with other countries, including Israel, AIbania declared the two diplomats were expelled for “violating their diplomatic status.”

U.S. President Donald Trump subsequently thanked Albania, saying in a letter to Prime Minister Edi Rama that the action “exemplifies our joint efforts to show the Iranian government that its terrorist activities in Europe and around the world will have severe consequences.”

Reaction from Iran

Iran blamed the United States and Israel for the expulsions. Its foreign ministry said Albania “has become an unintentional victim of the United States, Israel and some terrorist groups.”

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, seemed to target Albania in a televised address last week decrying the killing of Soleimani. He spoke of a “small and sinister” country that he claimed “was instrumental in a Western plot to effect violent unrest” in Iran in November. Mass protests swept Iran at that time following an abrupt increase in gasoline prices.

Albanian President Ilir Meta responded with a statement saying Albania “is not an evil country, but a democratic country that has suffered from an evil dictatorship unparalleled in its kind. [It] therefore considers human rights sacred.” Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha ruled for 40 years years before his death in 1985.

Iranian hostility toward Albania stems in part from the Balkan country’s decision to provide a refuge for 2,500 members of the People’s Mujahedin of Iran (Mojahedin-e Khalq or MEK), a militant Iranian opposition group regarded as terrorists by Tehran. The group was expelled from Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

The U.S. has assisted Albania in its efforts to resettle the MEK, which has supported the U.S. in military operations in the Middle East.

Albanian police disclosed for the first time late last year that they had thwarted a 2018 plot involving a “terrorist cell” of Iran’s elite Quds Force. They said the group was targeting a gathering in Albania that included MEK members.

Three Iranian men and one Turkish man were suspected of involvement in the cell.
 

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Days of angry protests in Iran over the military’s accidental downing of a Ukrainian airliner appear to signal a deeper discontent with the government.  The demonstrations began after the Iranian government acknowledged it shot down the aircraft killing all 176 passengers on board, most of them Iranian. The incident appears to have redirected public anger away from America’s targeted killing of a top Iranian general and more toward Iran’s leadership — and their political repression as the country’s economy struggles under U.S. sanctions. VOA’s Brian Padden has more on whether the protests signal the beginning of a popular revolt.
 

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Iraq’s influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr escalated his rhetoric Tuesday against the U.S. influence in Iraq, calling civilians to participate in a “million-person” march for the removal of American troops in the country.

“O Soldiers of God and the nation, rush to a united and peaceful demonstration of millions, denouncing the American presence and its violations,” al-Sadr said in a tweet to Iraqis.  

Al-Sadr, whose political list won the most seats in the Iraqi 2018 legislative elections, has used his popularity in the past to draw thousands of zealous supporters to the streets, including the October 2019 protests over government corruption. He has since 2003 ardently opposed the U.S. presence in Iraq and for years used the now disbanded Mahdy Army to target U.S. troops.

WATCH: Tens of Thousands of US Troops are Stationed Near Iran

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The cleric in his recent plea for rally expressed his frustration over the violation of Iraq’s sovereignty by “the occupying forces,” saying he was confident that Iraqi protesters “will not bow down to global arrogance.”

Global Arrogance  

The term “global arrogance” is often used by Iran’s officials to refer to the United States and its Western and Israeli allies.

Al-Sadr’s call for protests comes as Iran’s state-sponsored AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA) Tuesday reported an “important gathering” between him and “the commanders of Iraqi resistance” late Monday in Iran. 

The meeting, attended by leaders of Hezbollah Battalion, the Movement of the Noble Ones, Asaib Ahl al-Haq, was “in the virtue of more coordination of Islamic resistance forces” and “in order to put an end to the American invaders’ presence in Iraq,” ABNA reported, referring to three Shiite militant groups designated as terrorist organizations by the U.S.  

Another meeting between al-Sadr’s political wing Saairun and Fatih coalition in the Iranian city of Qom Saturday agreed to choose Hadi al-Aameri as the head of “the Islamic Resistance in Iraq” following the U.S. killing of Iraqi Shiite leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis along with IRGC’s Qassem Soleimani, ABNA reported.

Relations between the United States and Iran faced a series of escalations in recent weeks after the U.S. accused Iranian proxy militias of targeting U.S. facilities in Iraq, including a rocket attack in Kirkuk province that killed an American contractor in late December and prompted American strikes on Kataeb Hezbollah facilities in Iraq and Syria.

WATCH: A Look at Soleimani’s Axis of Resistance

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The tensions reached a new level high after the U.S. embassy was sieged by pro-Iran protesters on Dec. 31, followed by a U.S. airstrike on January 3 that killed Iran’s top commander Soleimani along with several others. Iran on Jan. 8 responded by firing a barrage of ballistic missiles on at least two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops. 

WATCH: Qassem Soleimani: From Construction Worker to Architect of Iran’s Middle East Expansion

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In Iraq, where the Shiite-dominated government has condemned the U.S. airstrike as a violation of its sovereignty, the parliament last week passed a resolution that asked for the removal of American troops and other foreign forces. U.S. president Donald Trump, in return, has threatened to hit Iraq with severe sanctions.

Sherko Mirways, a Kurdish lawmaker and head of Iraqi parliament’s Foreign Relations Committee, told VOA that Iraq was entering “a dark tunnel,” warning that Iraq’s leadership needs to take Trump’s threats seriously. 

“We need to work together to deescalate the situation now and have a serious debate later about Iraq’s political direction and a balanced relation with the world,” Mirways said. 

The lawmaker said that Iraq was falling victim to the U.S.-Iran rivalry, adding that the country needed to work with both sides based on mutual interests.

VOA Kurdish Service’s Dlshad Anwar contributed to this report from Kirkuk, Iraq.

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Authorities in Ivory Coast say they rescued 137 children who were the victims of traffickers and groomed to work on cocoa plantations or in prostitution.

Police rescued the children after surrounding the eastern town of Aboisso and carried out a two-day search of cars, farms, and nearby villages.

Officials say the children ranged from age six to 17 and were brought into Ivory Coast from Benin, Ghana, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo. The victims are in care of a charity in Aboisso while authorities search for their parents.

Senior police officials say they plan to increase operations aimed at stopping child trafficking.

“Ivory Coast’s image is tarnished by child trafficking. We are appealing to all parents: a child’s place is at school and not on plantations,” Aboisso’s deputy police chief Kouadio Yeboue Marcellin says.

Ivory Coast is dependent on the cocoa and cashew crops and poor farmers depend on child labor to pick the beans and nuts.

Western chocolate companies, including some of the biggest such as Nestle and Hershey, have pledged to stop buying beans produced by child workers. Critics say such efforts have been only modestly successful. 

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U.S. President Donald Trump drew both criticism and a small measure of credit after taking to Twitter to chastise Iranian leaders over press restrictions in the Islamic Republic, whose recent acknowledgment that it mistakenly shot down a Ukrainian passenger jet, killing all 176 aboard, has triggered massive street protests.

“To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS,” Trump Tweeted in both Farsi and English late on Saturday. “Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free!”

To the leaders of Iran – DO NOT KILL YOUR PROTESTERS. Thousands have already been killed or imprisoned by you, and the World is watching. More importantly, the USA is watching. Turn your internet back on and let reporters roam free! Stop the killing of your great Iranian people!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 12, 2020

Critics such as Trump’s Republican presidential challenger Bill Weld, a former Massachusetts governor, were quick to lampoon the irony of Trump remarks defending a free press.

“The one bit of good news today is we know that [Trump] wants reporters to roam free in Iran,” Weld said of Trump’s Tweet while appearing on CNN.

“The only problem is he doesn’t want them to roam free in the U.S., because he says to us a free press is the ‘enemy of the people’,” said Weld.

Since assuming office in 2017, multiple news outlets have noted a correlation between Trump’s contempt for mainstream media outlets, and how the use of specific terms such as ‘fake news’ have subsequently gained traction abroad.

CNN’s Brian Stelter, who routinely skewers Trump’s combative stance against Western media outlets, offered the president reserved praise for his recent Iran Tweets.

“President Trump supporting press freedom — not in the United States, but in Iran,” Stetler said in the opening segment of Reliable Sources.

“And Trump is right about press restrictions in the country,” Stetler said, referring to research by the Committee to Protect Journalist’s “10 Most Censored Countries” list.

“He’s right that reporters aren’t always allowed to roam free, in fact it’s quite bleak,” he said. “Journalists in the country are frequently arrested, jailed, and when you are trying to report in Iran, you typically have freedom of movement in Tehran, the capital, but it’s another thing to get permission to go to other parts of the country.”

In that regard, he added, “the president is clearly hearing the voices of the protesters there.”

Abbas Mousavi, and Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson, responded directly to Trump’s Twitter thread, stating that “those who threatened, sanctioned and terrorized the Iranian nation are not entitled to dishonor the ancient Persian language.”

Last year, CPJ ranked Iran as the 7th-most-censored country in the world, citing arrests and “harsh prison sentences on journalists who cover topics deemed sensitive, including local corruption and protests.”

“The government suppresses online expression by spying on domestic and international journalists, jamming satellite television broadcasts, and blocking millions of websites and key social media platforms, according to the Center for Human Rights in Iran and U.S. Congress-funded Radio Farda,” the report says (Radio Farda is one of VOA’s USAGM sister networks).

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, known by its French acronym RSF, ranked Iran 170 out of 180 countries in its 2019 annual World Press Freedom Index, calling state control of news and information “unrelenting,” with “at least 860 journalists and citizen-journalists … imprisoned or executed since 1979.”

The 2019 RSF index ranked the United States 48 out of 180, a three-slot drop from 45th place in 2018, as “rhetorical attacks from the government and private individuals alike grew increasingly hostile.”

“President Trump has continued to declare the press as the ‘enemy of the American people’ and ‘fake news’ in an apparent attempt to discredit critical reporting,” says the index, which cites White House attempts to deny journalists access to events of public interest, record-breaking spans of time without press briefings, and the 2018 revocation of a CNN reporter’s press pass.

The Washington Post’s former Tehran correspondent Jason Rezaian on Saturday called the ongoing anti-government protests a “make or break moment” for the Islamic Republic, where he spent 544 days in the notorious Evin Prison on politically motivated espionage allegations. 

Iranians on Monday staged their third consecutive days of protests.

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