FOUR BRITISH HUMANISTS WRITE IN THE GUARDIAN, 5 SEPTEMBER 2001

Sir

We write to express our concern at the death sentence passed on lecturer, peace activist and founder of the progressive group Enlightenment, Dr Yunis Shaikh, in Pakistan.  Dr Shaikh was convicted, on the flimsiest of evidence, of blasphemy, in itself a contravention of internationally agreed rights to freedom of belief and freedom of expression.  His "crime" appears to have been to say that neither Mohammed nor his parents could logically have been Muslims before Islam was revealed to him, the kind of remark that would be the normal currency of theological and philosophical debate in any free country.  We urge the British Government to exert diplomatic pressure on Pakistan to abide by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, and to request Dr Shaikh's immediate release, if necessary offering him asylum here.

Yours sincerely,

Claire Rayner, President, British Humanist Association
Professor Richard Norman, Chair, Humanist Philosophers' Group
Denis Cobell, President, National Secular Society
Ivor Russell, Chair, Rationalist Press Association