In today’s edition of Religion News Briefs: Appeals court orders punitive damages against jailed cult leader Tony Alamo reduced from $60M to $24M. Also: cult expert Stephen Kent addresses the decline of Scientology. And the Raelian Movement — a UFO cult — really knows how to latch onto free publicity.

Plus some surprising news in the blasphemy case against a young Pakistani Christian girl. And more…

In today’s roundup: a UFO cult promotes the Swastika; yet another one of Jehovah’s Witnesses needlessly dies in obedience to the cult’s teachings; and the Trinity Broadcasting Network is reeling from yet another revelation.

Also: do people join cults due to depression? Plus: links to additional religion news stories of note.

In the white-tiled, one-bedroom Miami apartment were books and hand-scrawled notes attesting to the family’s devotion to a sect that believes in extraterrestrial beings and human cloning.

Among the items found in the sparsely furnished apartment: several French magazines and books — including Let’s Welcome the Extraterrestrials and Yes to Human Cloning — connected with the Raelian movement.

Coming up August 22: the National (USA) Go Topless Protest.

Go Topless has been around since 2007, and its big push is Go Topless Day, an annual event held on the Sunday closest to Aug. 26, which is Women’s Equality Day, the anniversary of the day women were given the right to vote.

Although Go Topless is focused on the laws in the U.S., its roots are, well, extraterrestrial in origin.

Both Gary and Abdulla are members of the Raelian religion, which believes that humans were created by advanced scientists known as the Elohim. The group is best known for its close ties to Clonaid, a human cloning company that claimed in 2002 to have created the first cloned human baby.

They say their beliefs in ETs are inspiring them to fight to make the right to bare breasts as fundamental as the right to bear arms.

The Raelians have designated this Sunday (June 27) as “World Swastika Rehabilitation Day,” saying the ancient symbol should no longer be damned by its ties to Nazism.

The Raelian symbol, a swastika merged with the Star of David, has hindered the group’s plans to build “interplanetary embassies” in Israel and Lebanon.

Addressing a conference of cult survivors in Brisbane today, Senator Nick Xenophon said a new motion for a new parliamentary inquiry might include a push for police to take criminal action against cults.

He was also attracted to using the Trade Practices Act to prosecute groups for false and misleading conduct if they wrongly claimed to provide therapeutic benefits to their devotees.

The conference has heard a number of heart-rending stories from different religion-based and therapeutic cults.

The U.N. refugee agency is considering an asylum request from the Iranian leader of the Raelian Movement, a sect that believes in extraterrestrials.

She is being detained in Istanbul for not carrying a proper passport when she arrived in Turkey last week, and as an apostate from Islam faces a possible death sentence if sent home.

In a decision that one lawyer says further restricts the media’s freedom in Quebec, a judge has ruled that the a newspaper’s “clandestine” undercover investigation of the Raelian UFO cult went too far.

He has ordered its parent company, Sun Media Corp., to pay $9,000 in damages to two Raelians who sued for invasion of privacy.

In today’s Religion News Roundup: • Robert Schuller Twitters. • Why Scientologists are targeting Haiti. • Jailed cult leader Wayne Bent plans to appeal his conviction. • The Anti-Christ vs. Honduras.

Also: • The state of Virigina is ready for bioterrorism. • Jehovah’s Witnesses swamp small town. • Man who shot dead pastor at church says he is not guilty. • A Raelian bishop alleges religious discrimination. • Transcendental Meditation couldn’t save hotel.

• Jailed: Muslim pilots who prayed instead of taking emergency measures.

• Plug and Pray? Nope. Pay and Pray. Plus: • How Mormons try and explain a failed prophecy. • Heresy hunters hunted. And more…

Some quick links to religion-related stories you may have missed:

A Scientologist demonstrates that OT8 isn’t what it is cracked up to be; Islamic extremists forbid women from buying cucumbers; Member of Dutch smokers church get fined.

Plus: Do not marry 86 women.

A group of glamour lesbians who believe the world was created by an alien civilisation 25,000 years ago have criticised the Catholic Church for being out of touch.

Raelian spokeswoman Eden Bates said it was an insult that the Pope would be welcomed into Australia when “our gorgeous, fantastic spiritual leader Rael wasn’t even given the respect of a visa”.

Sun Media reporter Brigitte McCann and photographer Chantal Poirier infiltrated the Raelians over a nine-month period and have put to paper the inside story of this bizarre sect.