Feature: In Canada last week, Maclean’s magazine was on trial at the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal for publishing a book excerpt entitled “The future belongs to Islam,” which was accused of being “flagrantly anti-Muslim” by two Canadian Muslims. The International Herald Tribune has more.

SANA’A – Conservative Muslim clerics in Yemen have called upon President Ali Abdullah Selah to create a religious police force intended to “promote virtue and curb vice,” The National reported on June 7. However, a group of approximately 50 Yemani civil Society organizations have pledged their opposition to such an endeavor, citing it as a “façade for political oppression through the use of religion.” In a joint statement, these organizations stated that: “The major challenge our society is facing is not a lack of virtue and religious or ethical restraint, but poverty, illiteracy and a lack of development in health, education, corruption as well as the absence of justice and equal distribution of wealth and rule of law.”

CAMDEN – The Camden Town Council has rejected an application to build an Islamic school on farmland owned by the Quranic Society, a Muslim group based in Sydney, the International Herald Tribune reported on June 9. Over 3,000 letters of complaint have been sent to the council in protest against the Quranic Society’s application. Many of the letters made a case against the proposed school on racial and anti-Islamic grounds. Australia has experienced national immigration tensions since it abandoned its “White Australia Policy” 35 years ago.

BAKU – The local police in Baku raided a Jehovah's Witness meeting on June 3 and held nine men for six and a half hours, Forum 18 reported on June 9. The men were subjected to beatings, threatened with rape, and told to renounce their faith. Although Azerbaijan law does not ban religious practice at home, many local police believe that it does and have cracked down on religious services held in homes. The police chief of Baku described the Jehovah's Witnesses’ meeting as illegal: "They collect people together and teach them…They shouldn't meet in a private house – there are special places for this, like mosques and madrassas [Islamic colleges]."

MANIS LOR – On Monday the President of Indonesia signed a decree ordering the Muslim Ahmadiyya sect to cease the practice of their form of Islam, the International Herald Tribune reported on June 9. The hard-line Muslim organization ‘United for Islam’ has attacked the Ahmadiyya sect for not following mainstream Islamic practices. Five thousand members of ‘United for Islam’ recently protested outside the Presidential palace. The Ahmadiyya represent only a small minority of Muslim followers in Indonesia and their sect has 242 branches.

ALMATY – The Kazakh parliament has tentatively approved a restrictive religious bill on Wednesday, the International Herald Tribune reported on June 12. Human rights groups have spoken out against the proposed legislation, which would restrict missionary activities, restrict the right to publish religious literature, and make religious practice for some minority faiths impossible. "This bill will destroy all freedoms of conscience," said Ninel Fokina, head of the Almaty Helsinki Committee. "It bears no relation to the country's constitutional norms and to our obligations before the international community." The Senate will have six months to review the bill before approving it.

ANKARA – The Turkish PM said that the Constitutional Court must explain its ruling against the government’s reform policy which would have allowed headscarves to be worn on University grounds, Reuters reported on June 10. In most cases the Constitutional Court provides its reasoning behind each ruling. The current government, which is controlled by the majority AKP (Justice and Development Party), has faced numerous challenges to its agenda from the secularist judiciary, which claims the AKP agenda is driven by Islamist motives.

IRFN (June 7-12): Kazakhstan's Parliament Tentatively Approves Restrictive Religious Bill