I’m a Pakistani by birth, a Canadian by choice and Islam is my spiritual journey. I use the term spiritual intentionally, because it’s important to clarify right at the beginning that faith is not politics, and politics is not faith.

In a joint statement with the Center for Inquiry today (14 March 2012) IHEU representative Raheel Raza, herself a Muslim human rights activist,  spoke of the need for the Islamic states to do more to promote religious tolerance at home if they are really concerned about hostility towards Muslims in the West.

The saddest aspect of the recent ruthless murder of Salman Taseer, Governor of Punjab, was not so much the viciousness of the killing but the vicious celebration of his death. Taseer was shot dead on January 4, 2011 by Mumtaz Qadri, a member of the governor's special security squad.

Speaking on 20 September 2010 at 15th session of the UN Human Rights Council, IHEU representative Raheel Raza spoke of the plight of women being sentenced to death by stoning, or killed by family members in the name of "family honour" and the impunity that often accompanies these killings.

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.

It was just three years ago that the outgoing UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Louise Arbour said "there can be no taboos in the Human Rights Council". But there were then, and there still are today – as we learned this afternoon at a meeting to discuss slavery and forced labour in Brazil and Mauritania.