Equality & non-discrimination
13 May 2012
The EHF has written to the Ombudsman with firm comments on the EU Commission’s response to our complaint about their approach to the Article 17 dialogue with us and in particular their treatment of our request for a dialogue seminar. Our covering letter is here. It attaches our detailed comments, which have three enclosures: a letter from BEPA to the EHF dated 16 November 2011; an email from BEPA to the EHFdated 5 May 2011 and a letter… read more »
The Ombudsman in March 2012 forwarded to us for comment the EU Commission’s response to our complaint about their discrimination against us in their implementation of the Article 17 dialogue. The Ombudsman’s letter and the EU response may be read here. For the EHF’s complaint, see here . For the Ombudsman’s request for comments from the Commission, see here. For the EHF’s comments to the Ombudsman on the Commission’s response, see here.
23 April 2012
Hans Christian Cars represented EHF at the meeting of the EU Fundamental Rights Platform for NGOs (the FRP) on 19-20 April 2012. He reports: It was as usual thoroughly well organised with two panel discussions with invited experts and some forty workshops of which thirty were conducted by NGOs and the rest by FRA staff. In the election for Advisory Panel members, six were elected from a pool of 24 candidates. Regrettably one of these was… read more »
23 November 2011
The EU Ombudsman is taking seriously the EHF’s complaint about the EU Commisssion’s approach to the Article 17 dialogue with us and in particular its treatment of our request for a dialogue seminar. In a letter to the EHF dated 15 November, he tells us of the questions he has put to the Commission. See here for an EHF press release, dated 23 November. For the EHF’s complaint, see here . For the Commission… read more »
16 November 2011
Matt Cherry writes on the IHEU website: The inauguration of Michael D. Higgins as President of Ireland on Friday, November 11 2011, broke new ground by including a ‘reflection’ by a Humanist. Susie Kennedy, a representative of the Humanist Association of Ireland, spoke at the ceremony immediately after an inter-faith service. The President-elect specifically requested a female Humanist celebrant to ‘broaden the range and diversity of the occasion’. In her statement at the presidential inauguration,… read more »
9 November 2011
Anti-clerical party wins 10% of vote in general election An anti-clerical party named Palikot’s Movement after its founder won third place with just over 10% of the vote in the election on 9 October. See Reuter’s report here and a Guardian (UK) feature article by Aleksandra Szyllo, the online editor of Gazeta Wyborczathe, here. Commenting on the latter article, Andrzej Dominiczak of the Polish Humanist Association writes: Despite the propaganda by the right wing media, Palikot’s party… read more »
28 October 2011
[For later information, see here.] On 19 October 2011 the European Humanist Federation sent a complaint to the European Ombudsman about the refusal of the EU Commission to meet them in a “dialogue seminar” as part of the “open, transparent and regular dialogue” with churches, religious associations or communities, philosophical and non-confessional organisations which is mandated by Article 17:3 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (as amended by the Lisbon Treaty)…. read more »
1 October 2011
The EHF was represented at the 2011 conference in Warsaw (left, general view from the NGO seats) by its President, David Pollock, by its OSCE representatives Hans Christian Cars and (from member organisations) by Vera Pegna of the Unione degli Atei e degli Agnostici Razionalisti (UAAR) and Pierre-Arnaud Perrouty of the Centre d’Action Laique in Brussels. We made three interventions in the session on 27 September on “Freedom of thought, conscience, religion or belief”. David… read more »
1 February 2011
Meeting of the EP Platform for Secularism in Politics At the meeting of the European Parliament Platform for Secularism in Politics on 1 February 2011 there were two speakers on the subject of religion, Fundamental Rights and the draft anti-discrimination Directive. Introducing the discussion, Sophie in’t Veld said that in 2001 the EU had approved a directive against employment-related discrimination related to religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation (the “strands” of sex and racial or… read more »
7 May 2010
EHF President David Pollock took part in an international conference on Religious Freedom in Democratic Societies in Cordoba on 3-4 May 2010. The conference was run by the EU Council’s current Spanish Presidency and the UN Alliance of Civilisations. About 200 people from across Europe took part – academics, religious figures, politicians, diplomats and people from a variety of NGOs. David Pollock reports: This was a rich occasion, impossible to summarise save to say that… read more »