A leading opposition Australian lawmaker has made an emotional plea not to rush through a controversial bill aimed at protecting religious people. Critics says the bill enables discrimination and would allow religious schools to exclude transgender students. Mentioning his late gay nephew, Labor MP Stephen Jones said the bill had not been thought through. “He was just 15 when he took his own life,” he told parliament.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison introduced the Religious Discrimination Bill in November, and said it will ensure protection for religious people and organisations to express beliefs and avoid “cancel culture”. During a speech in parliament in Canberra on Tuesday, Mr Jones, the shadow assistant treasurer, said the bill in its current form “pleases no-one”. “I support freedom of religion. I understand many in our community who want to see the existing laws strengthened to protect their freedom of religious expression. I support that too,” he said.(BBC)…[+]

The University of California has agreed to pay nearly $250m (£185m) to over 200 women who allege they were sexually assaulted by a campus gynaecologist. Multiple women accuse the university’s Los Angeles site (UCLA) of deliberately hiding James Heaps’ alleged sexual abuse of patients. Mr Heaps was based at the UCLA student health centre during his 35-year career between 1983 and 2018. Hundreds of women, some of whom had cancer, say they were abused by him. The university did not begin investigating complaints against Mr Heaps until 2017. It has been accused in hundreds of lawsuits of deliberately hiding the gynaecologist’s alleged sexual abuse of patients. His medical licence was suspended by a judge in 2019 for the duration of the sex abuse case.(BBC)…[+]

An Indian state has shut high schools and colleges for three days after a row over the hijab that has gained international attention after Nobel Prize-winner Malala Yousafzai weighed in. The government of Karnataka state in southern India took the decision after protests by students over Muslim women wearing headscarves in the classroom escalated into violence. On Wednesday, the state’s high court, which was hearing two petitions filed on behalf of some of the Muslim women, requested the chief justice to set up a larger bench to deliberate the matter. The developments occurred after protests by six teenage students at a government-run college over wearing hijabs spread to other colleges. Several Hindu students then turned up wearing saffron shawls – the colour seen as a Hindu symbol – to protest against Muslim women wearing hijabs.(BBC)…[+]