Some interesting law & religion stories from around the web this week:

• A ruling by the Third Circuit increased the chances that the Supreme Court will need to settle whether secular, for-profit corporations must provide contraceptive coverage to employees despite the owners’ religious objections
• A Bangladesh court declared the country’s main Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, illegal as a violation of the country’s secular constitution. The ruling effectively bans the party from a general election due early next year
• Several controversies have arisen in France involving strict church-state separation and Muslims
  
• Christian activists have called upon Britain’s most senior policeman to issue guidance to all officers about the public’s freedom of speech, following an incident where a street preacher was held for almost seven hours and fingerprinted for delivering sermons that refer to the traditional Christian view of homosexuality
• A Saudi website editor has been sentenced to seven years in prison and 600 lashes for founding an internet forum that violates basic Islamic values and propagates liberal thought
• Egyptian authorities gave a strong indication this past week that security forces are preparing a strike against the Muslim Brotherhood, claiming they pose a threat to national security
• The New York Times considers Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood
• On Monday, North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law a measure directing state officials to regulate abortion clinics based on the same standards as those used for outpatient surgical centers
• Hundreds of Buddhists demonstrated in Nepal’s capital on Tuesday to protest local authorities’ denial of permission to build a shrine
• The New Orleans city council has ended a ban on disseminating “any social, political, or religious message between the hours of sunset and sunrise” on Bourbon Street