Update: Iran has withdrawn its candidacy. IHEU President Sonja Eggerickx today launched an international appeal to keep Iran out of the United Nations Human Rights Council. "Iran has one of the worst human rights records on earth," she said, "yet it has had the audacity to announce its candidacy for membership of the UN Human Rights Council. The international community must not let this happen. We are calling upon the world's non-governmental organisations to join us in our appeal to keep Iran out." IHEU has started a petition on this web site and is seeking signatures from other organizations.

Please act now to ask the Iranian government to stop the execution of Ehsan Fattahian scheduled for Wednesday, November 11, 2009.

The first "World Conference on Untouchability" has prompted questions in the House of Commons and the House of Lords about government policy towards the global human rights problem of caste discrimination, which afflicts almost 250 million people in countries from Japan to Nigeria. The questions were raised by Jeremy Corbyn, MP, and Lord Avebury. Both parliamentarians will speak at the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU) conference, to be held at Conway Hall Humanist Centre, London, on June 9 and 10.

IHEU has strongly condemned the execution of children in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Yemen and Pakistan and the practice of child marriage. In a statement to the annual meeting on the Rights of the Child held at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, IHEU called the continuation of child marriage "a disgrace" and judicial killing of children "the ultimate barbarity".

It’s time our leaders learned that Islam is just another religion.

It was a bad week for freedom. On Monday and Tuesday 9/10 February, an Islamic mob in Kolkata (Calcutta) called for the arrest of Ravindra Kumar and Anand Sinha, the editor and publisher of the Statesman, one of the oldest and most respected English-language newspapers in India. On cue, the Indian authorities arrested both men on Wednesday.

The One Law for All campaign, which is seeking legislation to curb the influence of sharia law in Britain, has launched a petition and is seeking as many signatures as possible in favour of its campaign. Over 2,000 signatures have already been registered.

On 2 December 2008, the General Secretariat of the OIC released a statement that is utterly breathtaking in its duplicity. The statement is entitled “Islam, the Religion of peace, tolerance and compassion”. It begins:
“With the multiplicity of terrorist attacks perpetrated recently by deviant and fanatic individuals, the General Secretariat of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) has noticed a tendency of a section of the media, to interpose the word “Islam” in reporting these incidences.”

On Human Rights Day, 10 December 2008, in collaboration with two other NGOs, IHEU issued an urgent appeal to the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay on behalf of Iraq's rapidly disappearing Christian population.

The One Law for All campaign, which is seeking legislation to curb the influence of sharia law in Britain, was launched at the House of Lords on International Human Rights Day, December 10, 2008.

The Arabic Network for Human Rights reports that the website of Arab Secularists http://www.3almani.org is facing a campaign to block it in Arab states. Five states have already blocked the site, making it the most-blocked website, surpassing even the Alhewar website http://www.ahewar.org which has been blocked in four Arab countries.