Australian Humanists, meeting in national convention in Sydney, at Humanist House, 10 Shepherd St, Chippendale, resolved on 3rd May as follows:

‘To express our dismay at recent events in the United Nations Human Rights Council, which seriously challenge the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights in this its sixtieth anniversary year.’

An amendment sponsored by Pakistan (28 March 2008) requires the Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression to police and censor the exercise of freedom of expression. An impassioned and courageous plea from 21 Islamic NGO’s opposing it was ignored. The background to these events has been the increasing domination of the UN Human Rights Council by fundamentalist religious groups. Their essential argument is that religion is above criticism even on matters of policy. Humanists support freedom of religion but regard the basic human rights of the individual as enunciated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to be for all individuals but not for groups or religions.

See www.iheu.org/node/3123