When Rob Buckman – Humanist, oncologist, and TV personality – realized he was dying from an autoimmune disease, he thought it would be useful to make a film to help others learn from his death. He was right about the value of the film: Your Own Worst Enemy was a great critical success and helped countless people address a topic that is taboo and yet unavoidable. But Rob was wrong about the subject of the film: thanks to a new treatment he survived another three decades after the 1981 movie. And those three decades were filled with the love, learning and laughter that made him a hugely popular figure on both sides of the Atlantic.

On Thursday September 17 at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, International PEN, with support from three other organisations and the Norwegian Mission to the UN Geneva, hosted a public meeting called "Faith and Free Speech, Defamation of Religions and Freedom of Expression." The consensus that emerged from the meeting was that criminalising defamation of religion is not the way forward.

See http://www.atheistconvention.org/ for details.

In the November edition of IHN, we reported on the position taken by the Federation Nationale de la Libre Pensée on the wearing of religious clothing in private life. The article argued strongly that while it is the duty of the state to ban all signs of religious membership in state schools and public services, it should refrain from dictating specific attire in the private domain.

In May this year, a Commission under Justice Sean Ryan reported to the Irish Government on the wide-scale abuse of children in Irish institutions over a very long period.

With the recent public acknowledgment by the Canadian government that thousands of children died in church-run "Indian residential schools" across Canada, that country faces a historic test: will it hold itself and its churches accountable for the crimes against humanity inflicted by them on aboriginal people?

So far, the answer appears to be No.

Can the ongoing fighting in the Darfur region of Sudan be called a genocide? Phyllis and Sylvain Ehrenfeld (“Does the UN Have the Power to do its Job?”, IHN May 2008) have no doubts. However, the Darfur conflict has been called the first Climate Change war - and for good reasons.

IHEU's campaign for freedom of expression at the UN Human Rights Council has been highlighted by Macleans, the Canadian news magazine. In a wide-ranging article concluding that Islamic states are trying to stifle freedom of speech in the guise of anti-defamation rules, the magazine quoted the recent ruling at the Council that NGOs could not refer to Sharia law.

Henry Morgentaler, the leading campaigner for the legalization of abortion in Canada, has been honoured with the Order of Canada. He spent ten months in prison, despite being acquitted three times by juries, and his letters from prison were published in the Canadian Humanist. IHEU supported him, among other things by sending letters of protest to the Canadian authorities.

An American Humanist once asked me what it is like to live as a Humanist in Canada. He looked wistful as I said that the experience is usually positive and that people’s reaction to learning that I am an Agnostic Humanist is usually polite, although sometimes surprised.