Human Rights
1 October 2012
The signatories of this petition ask the Council of Human Rights of the UN and the European Commission to promulgate international and European laws for the protection of freedom of thought, conscience and exercise of religion and belief without discrimination and to remove any items outlawing blasphemy in national constitutions and laws. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (57 countries) requires that blasphemy is considered a defamation of religions and criminally sanctioned. Freedom of expression is… read more »
25 September 2012
Message from Raffaele Carcano, Secretary of UAAR -the largest Italian humanist association. 22 September 2012 “Italian ministers, and especially Foreign Affairs ministers, have had us used to disparaging nonbelievers. Two years ago Franco Frattini, minister under the last Berlusconi government, said that “atheism, materialism and relativism are perverse phenomena characterized by intolerance that undermine society”. A few days ago his successor, Terzi, commented on the facts surrounding the cartoons published on Charlie Hebdo, showing once… read more »
21 September 2012
(politics.co.uk) - By Andrew Copson, chief executive of the British Humanist Association and vice president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union. In the wake of protests and violence in connection with the ‘Innocence of Muslims’ video, a number of political and religious authorities have made fresh calls for an international law against the “defamation of religion”, or “blasphemy”. The calls have come from religious leaders in Egypt, both Muslim and Christian, from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah (who called the video “the worst attack ever on… read more »
10 September 2012
15th September 2012 The “Secular Europe Campaign” is an annual effort that sees many diverse groups united in demanding an end to religious privileges and asking that the European Institutions must remain secular. Starting in 2008, this Campaign has a special focus on the Vatican, given the enormous political and economical power it holds, but aims at representing all the issues around secularism and human rights, including opposition to state-funded faith schools, rejection of religious… read more »
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.
4 May 2012
EHF received an appeal from the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) for support for an Indonesian civil servant, Alexander Aan, who is being prosecuted after creating an atheist group on Facebook. Some background is available on the New Humanist blog and the AHRC website has full details. We sent emails as requested to Prof. Harkristuti Harkrisnowo, the General Director of Human Rights at the Ministry of Law and Human Rights, to Mr. Suryadharma Ali, the Minister of… read more »
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 »
4 February 2012
LATEST (21 February): The Christian Democratic Party has announced that it will abolish the requirement for compulsory sterilization of people undergoing a sex correction – see here. In Sweden people who have their gender reassigned from male to female or vice-versa are forced by law to be permanently sterilised. The EHF has sent a protest to the Prime Minister of Sweden, Fredrik Reinfeldt, who – apparently for political reasons – is refusing to amend the… read more »
29 January 2012
One aspect of the question of religion in society is the increasing and often strident assertion of an unqualified right to conscientious objection on religious grounds to many civic, occupational or other duties or legal restrictions. The EHF has adopted a policy on conscientious objection. It says that humanists set a high value on freedom of religion or belief. However, it draws attention to the c0nditions the European Convention on Human Rights imposes on… read more »