Black church leaders and community groups have joined protests from civil rights campaigners over the UK government’s decision to retain DNA profiles on close to a million innocent people for up to 12 years.

A renewed popular discourse on fundamental human rights for all is needed in the face of the erosion of civil liberties by governments and corporate power, said the director of Liberty this morning.

Black community and church leaders are backing a symposium next week at the House of Commons on the over-representation of African Caribbean people on the national criminal DNA database.

Two senior black United Methodist clergy in the USA, also longtime civil-rights advocates, say there are parallels between the struggles of blacks in the 1960s and those of gays and lesbians working for full inclusion in the church today.

United Sikhs, a UN affiliated international advocacy NGO, joined other civil rights organizations over the weekend in asking Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to discuss the Sikh turban issue in France with President Sarkozy.

US civil rights leader the Rev Jesse Jackson, speaking at the launch in Oxford of a programme aimed at increasing the number of black students in higher education, has challenged universities to reflect the diversity of society.

Malaysian Christians have expressed fresh worries that the government may be infringing the basics of religious freedom, after the country's deputy prime minister described Malaysia as "an Islamic state"

Leaders of 20 national American religious organizations are continuing to press the US Congress this month (June 2007), urging expanded funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Programme (SCHIP).