IHEU invites applications for funding in the IHEU-HIVOS Humanist Network and Development programme for 2009. The deadline for applications is 1 September 2009.

George Broadhead writes: The latest issue of G&LH is now available free at www.gayandlesbianhumanist.org

Speaking exclusively to the British Humanist Association (BHA), award-winning author and BHA Distinguished Support Terry Pratchett OBE discusses his views on why it is ethical to allow people to be able to choose to have assisted death, ‘when medicine cannot do any more’. Mr Pratchett recorded his thoughts on film for the BHA, ahead of a vote in the House of Lords on part of the law on assisted dying which, if passed, would remove the threat of prosecution of friends and relatives who those who compassionately accompany terminally ill loved ones abroad to die in a country where assisted dying is legal.

European Commission President Manuel Barroso and President of the European Parliament Hans Gert Pőttering hosted a lunch in Brussels on Friday 26 June 2009 with philosophical non-confessional organizations in the Commission’s efforts towards strengthening European values. IHEU representative Keith Porteous Wood was among the guests. Porteous Wood spoke of the worrying trends prevalent at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. His greatest concern was the undermining of Universal Human Rights by the Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam being strongly promoted by the Islamic states.

Julian Burnside, QC, barrister and Kate Durham, artist have been honoured for assisting asylum seekers redress infringements to their human rights and achieve the first steps towards a better life. The 2009 Australian Humanists of the Year (AHOY) awards are made by IHEU member organization The Council of Australian Humanist Societies.

Update: the deadline for signing has passed and the bill did not become law [27 June 2009]. IHEU president, Sonja Eggerickx, has urged the president of the Republic of Lithuania, Valdas Adamkus, to refuse to sign a law that would ban information on homosexuality from schools.

New Humanist reports that hardline Islamists were ejected from the home of British Humanism on Wednesday night [17 June 2009]. The planned "debate" on Sharia law at Conway Hall in London was in fact, according to The Guardian, an attempt to relaunch the extreme Islamist group Al-Muhajiroun. Conway Hall is the historic home of British secularism, Humanism and freethought, and was where IHEU held its General Assembly and the First World Conference on Untouchability earlier this month.

20 years after Tiananmen Square, IHEU has criticized China's human rights record and urged the international community to consider again the criteria for membership of the Council. The strong criticism was voiced in a written statement to the June 2009 11th Session of the UN Human Rights Council.

The UN Human Rights Council has adopted the attached resolution on Preventable Maternal Mortality. The text of the speech given by Anthony Grayling on behalf of IHEU in support of this resolution is also attached.

Caste discrimination “clealy falls within my mandate” claimed the newly-appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Racism Mr Mugai, speaking on 16 June 2009 at the end of a short debate on his first report to the Human Rights Council. One week after the landmark conference on untouchability held in London under the auspices of IHEU, an official of the Human Rights Council has finally taken this issue on board. (video added)