Confronted with an increasingly perilous security environment , Kazakhstan has tightened its restrictions on religious activity in recent months. In mid-September, the Kazakh Ministry of Culture and Sports began to summon home some 300 Kazakh nationals studying at religious institutions abroad. Though officials did not give an explicit reason for recalling the students, they noted that the Kazakh Muslim Board had sent 100 of the individuals in question to their schools. Then, on Oct. 14, the newly created Kazakh Ministry of Religious Issues and Civil Society announced its plan to ban Salafism, an austere interpretation of Sunnism that does not recognize Islam's other branches, including Shiism and Sufism. The ministry's chief explained the move by saying Salafism "poses a destructive threat to Kazakhstan." Five days later, the ministry (along with the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Justice) prohibited women from wearing headscarves in educational institutions.