The BBC has rejected a complaint from the Islamic Sharia Council in Leyton East London after it was featured in the Panorama programme about the treatment of women in sharia arbitration bodies.

One Law for All and the Lawyers' Secular Society (LSS) have announced a student research competition on the subject of sharia law, sponsored by the National Secular Society.

Kuwaiti MPs this week approved a law with a death penalty for Muslims who curse God, the Koran, all prophets and the wives of Islam's Prophet Mohammed. Non-Muslims who commit the same offence face a jail term of not less than 10 years, according to the bill.

Peers in the House of Lords have expressed overwhelming support for a bill to limit the power of self styled 'religious courts'.

The Executive Director of the National Secular Society, Keith Porteous Wood, has spoken out at the United Nations Human Rights Council about the need to hold religious minorities to the same standards of human rights observance as everyone else. He has also criticised the increasing acceptance of religious law as a legitimate alternative to democratically agreed legal systems.