OTTWA (Middle East Eye) – Muslim organizations in Canada are asking the courts to declare a provincial proclamation in Quebec that bans religious activity in schools as unconstitutional. Six groups - which include the Muslim Association of Canada, the Canadian Muslim Forum and four local organizations - filed a lawsuit this week asking the Quebec Superior Court to “declare constitutionally invalid, inapplicable, inoperative, or to annul” the order to prohibit all forms of prayer in public schools. “The plaintiffs request that a declaratory judgment concerning the interpretation to be given to the principles of laicity and religious neutrality of the state be rendered so that these principles cannot be used to order prohibitions of prayers or other religious practices in public places,” the filing reads. The groups argued that the order is discriminatory and violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Islamophobia is “deeply” entrenched in Canadian society, and Black hijab-wearing women are the most vulnerable, a Canadian Senate committee report said last month. Far-right and anti-Muslim hate groups are growing, along with incidents of hate, according to a report by the Senate Committee on Human Rights. The report is set to be released in its entirety in July. In 2017, Muslim and civil rights groups challenged a Quebec ban on officials or anyone receiving public services from covering their faces, arguing it infringes on women’s and Muslim religious rights.

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BUDAPEST (Reuters) – Thousands of Hungarians have rallied in Budapest to protest against new legislation that would eliminate the public servant status of teachers, as well as police tear-gassing of teenagers during a previous demonstration. In power since 2010, conservative nationalist Prime Minister Viktor Orban has faced increasing public protests as he has clashed with the European Union over democratic standards, curbed independent media, academics and judges and cracked down on the rights of migrants. The protest came after a series of rallies and strikes for higher salaries and better working conditions for teachers. Hungary’s inflation rate - now running at 24% - has eroded teacher wages that were already below the national average and rank second to last among OECD countries according to 2021 data. Protesters on Friday marched against the new so-called Status Law that would also significantly increase teachers’ workload. Critics refer to the legislation as the “Revenge Law,” perceived as punishment for teachers’ year-long resistance. Orban’s government said the bill aimed to improve the quality of education. Almost 5,000 teachers have already said they will leave their profession if the Status Law comes into force. Street protests over the past year have been peaceful except for one early this month when police tear-gassed some teenagers in a pro-teacher rally as they tried to get closer to Orban’s offices, surrounded by construction fences since 2020.

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SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian police will not release bodycam footage of an officer tasering a 95-year-old great-grandmother with dementia inside her nursing home, a state police chief said Saturday. The woman, Clare Nowland, is in a critical state in hospital, three days after being shot with an electronic stun gun in a confrontation that shocked Australians and made international headlines. Officers arrived at Yallambee Lodge in southern New South Wales on Wednesday after being alerted by nursing home staff that a woman was “armed with a knife,” police said. Police say they urged Nowland to drop the serrated steak knife before she moved toward them “at a slow pace” with the aid of a walking frame, prompting one officer to fire his taser at her. Asked about political calls for police body-worn video of the tasering to be released, New South Wales police commissioner Karen Webb said: “I am not sure why they want to see it.” The state police chief said she had only heard the audio from the recording: “I don’t see it necessary that I actually view it,” she told a news conference. Citing “legislative requirements” surrounding surveillance devices, Webb added: “We don’t intend to release it unless there is a process at the end of this that would allow it to be released.” An investigation into the firing of the taser “will take time,” she said.

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PARIS (Dispatches) – Sixteen percent of French people say they did not have enough food to eat at the end of last year, according to a new study. A survey by the Research Center for the Study and Observation of Living Conditions (Crédoc) found the ratio has increased significantly in recent months, from 12 to 16 percent in the last six months. This means more than 10 million of France’s 68 million people do not get enough food. The center attributed the finding to the increase in the price of food products on the shelves and inflation of more than 10 percent in some products. The survey also shows that while the French have the means to eat their fill, nearly one in two still admits they don’t have access to all the food they like. Since the ratio of food prices to people’s incomes is not proportionate, they have no choice but to deprive themselves of meat, fish or even fruits and vegetables. According to the study, while these exclusions remained relatively marginal when inflation was kept below 2 percent, they have increased significantly in recent months as economic problems have intensified.

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WASHINGTON (Xinhua) – More than 100,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2022, according to data released this week from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The year of 2022 was the deadliest on record for drug overdoses, which claimed the lives of an estimated 109,680 people, according to numbers posted Wednesday by the CDC. Overdose deaths in the United States surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. The death number rose from 71,000 in 2019 to over 90,000 in 2020, and surpassed 100,000 in 2021 for the first time.

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SYDNEY (AFP) – One of Australia’s top television journalists has opened a bout of national soul-searching by quitting his show over the racist abuse he faces as an Indigenous man in the spotlight. An award-winning journalist with the ABC, Stan Grant said the national broadcaster had lodged a complaint with Twitter about the “relentless racial filth” he endured. But he added the media itself “lie and distort my words” and depicted him as “hate-filled” after he raised Britain’s colonial persecution of Indigenous Australians during the ABC’s coverage of King Charles III’s coronation. “I pointed out that the crown represents the invasion and theft of our land,” Grant said in an article published on ABC’s website. “Police wearing the seal of the crown took children from their families. Under the crown our people were massacred.”