27 October 2002
The EHF and the Polish Humanist Federation jointly organised, with financial support from the European Commission, a conference on “Humanism and democracy in Central Europe : co-existence of different lifestances”. This was held in the Polish Parliament, in Warsaw (Poland) on 25-26 October 2002. 25 October Debate on the future of Europe – Human rights and freedoms in the Constitution of the European Union – Making of a humanist platform on human rights in view… read more »
26 October 2002
Speech by Steinar Nilsen, EHF President, delivered at the Conference on Co-existence of Religious Communities and Humanists in Europe (October 2002) Ten years is not much of an age. When I was ten years old, Norway was still recovering after the second world war, there was housing shortage, rationing and rebuilding. As for EHF after ten years, we have no housing shortage, our offices in Brussels are ample for the work we are doing. Rationing… read more »
25 October 2002
Speech by Vera Pegna at 2002 Conference on Co-existence of Religious Communities and Humanists in Europe Friends, On behalf of the European Humanist Federation I welcome you all most warmly to this session. Yesterday we listened to stimulating reports by Babu Gogineni, executive secretary of IHEU, and by a number of Polish speakers and I look forward to reading them when the minutes of our proceedings will be published. Our heartiest thanks for this and… read more »
4 October 2002
EHF press release The European Humanist Federation (EHF) states emphatically that the recommendation passed by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on June 26, 1999, was based on an introductory report by Mrs. Edeltraud Gatterer who is personally totally opposed to any recognition of the legitimacy of euthanasia. It affirmed that euthanasia contradicted Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and compared it to the death penalty. This report is unilateral… read more »
The great majority of Humanists and Secularists support legal provision for voluntary euthanasia or assisted dying subject to necessary safeguards in circumstances where people are suffering unendurable pain or loss of faculties and there is no hope of cure or improvement. Since we hold that this is the only life we have and that we are not beholden to any deity, we see it as essentially a personal decision whether or not to accept help to… read more »