Dua Lipa Is Fighting Book Bans with a New 'Manifesto Library' She Calls a 'Shrine' to Banned Books; People, June 29, 2026

Desiree Anello, People; Dua Lipa Is Fighting Book Bans with a New 'Manifesto Library' She Calls a 'Shrine' to Banned Books

"Dua Lipa is taking her book club to the next level. 

Three years after she founded Service95, a book club dedicated to "serving up insider recommendations and global stories featuring some of the world's most compelling voices," the pop star and bookworm, 30, celebrated the opening of her very first physical library. 

"This library is a shrine to books that have disappeared, to authors whose courage unmasks structures of power and control, and to readers who refuse to be told what book they're allowed," Lipa wrote in an Instagram post shared by Service95 Book Club and Livraria Lello. 

In her Manifesto Library, which opened on June 27 as part of the new BABELL - City of Books literary festival, Lipa will stock a diverse collection of books — including banned books — that relate to the themes of power, control, voice and memory. The permanent library resides inside the historic Livraria Lello Bookshop in Porto, Portugal."

The secret Afghan women’s book club defying the Taliban to read Orwell; The Guardian, February 19, 2026

 Azada Raha, from Rukhshana Media, The Guardian; The secret Afghan women’s book club defying the Taliban to read Orwell

"Most of the books the five women have discussed since they started the reading circle last June are classics, and most deal with issues of power, suffering, and the place of women, though they have embraced variety. The works they’ve read include George Orwell’s Animal Farm, Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, Zoya Pirzad’s I’ll Turn Off the Lights and Symphony of the Dead, also by Abbas Maroufi.

Most of the books can be found online and downloaded free, although occasionally they borrow books from libraries.

They meet every week for an hour-and-a-half at the home of one of the members, varying the location to avoid scrutiny in a country where women’s freedoms have been severely curtailed."

We’re pastors. The fight against Maga Christianity starts locally; The Guardian, December 21, 2025

 Doug Pagitt and Lori Walke, The Guardian ; We’re pastors. The fight against Maga Christianity starts locally

"Donald Trump wants us to believe that the “war on Christianity” is spreading across the globe. The US president recently sounded the alarm on the “mass slaughter” of Christians in Nigeria while threatening a US invasion of the African nation. We shouldn’t be surprised. This falls right in line with Trump’s ongoing attempts to project Maga Christianity on to the global stage and crack down on religious freedom.

Maga Christianity represents a self-serving, commercialized version of the Christian faith – putting power over service and empathy – and it is everywhere in our federal government. In February, Trump announced a taskforce led by Pam Bondi with the goal of rooting out “anti-Christian” bias. In September, Trump announced his plans to protect prayer in schools. Later that month, he issued a memorandum identifying anti-Christianity as a potential driver of terrorism. These are not just one-off incidents. This is a national effort to push the Maga Christianity agenda on Americans, and we’re already seeing the consequences.

Despite the Bible’s clear call to “love thy neighbor”, the Maga movement has used its version of the Christian faith to oppress immigrants, oppose the rights of women and condemn the LGBTQ+ community. At the same time, we’ve seen shootings at places of worship and arrests of faith leaders at peaceful protests.

As faith leaders, our greatest strength during Trump 2.0 and the rise of Christian nationalism is our local congregations. It’s our ability to physically come together in our communities, communicate with one another, support our neighbors in need and elevate our own Christian values that set us apart.

Faith leaders have a powerful role to play, especially as the Trump administration continues to use religion to divide us."

Why The End of Communism Didn't End Antigay Hate in Russia; Advocate, 2/7/14

Michael Regula, Advocate; Why The End of Communism Didn't End Antigay Hate in Russia:

"“To the bureaucratic leaders, gay people seem totally bizarre, beyond understanding,” Smakov said in 1977. “Worse, they are viewed as threats to the system. Why? Because homosexuality is considered a sign of one’s intrinsic freedom and that, of course, is dangerous.”...

“There was a time that Russia was better,” says Vakhrushev. “Since the early '90s to middle 2000s, the situation was better than it is today.”

THE POLITICS

Without hesitation, Vakhrushev said Russia is “an antigay society.” While the blame could easily be placed on the government, he lays blame with his fellow countrymen, as well.

“Homophobia is an idea being forwarded by people, not government,” Vakhrushev says. But he does fault the Putin regime for perpetuating the status quo in the interest of — at its most innocuous — political gain. In a severely conservative state, capitalizing on such a collective ideology is undoubtedly a means to capture and retain power. Classifying homosexuals as a direct threat to the family and the survival of the state is a popular political platform for the Kremlin, State Duma, and the increasingly powerful Russian Orthodox Church, and one that echoes dictatorships of the past.

“The government doesn't want to educate people, it wants to sell oil,” says Vakhrushev. “It wants to be popular, and antigay law is very popular.”

Smakov spoke candidly of the Soviet regime’s labeling homosexuals as “threats to the system” and “dangerous” to the state. In the past, such rhetoric has been closely accompanied by a systematic constriction of free speech — one of the many charges consistently leveled against Putin’s United Russia party."